MESSIANIC  EXPECTATIONS 


MODERN   JUDAISM. 


LECTURES  DELIVERED  BY 

SOLOMON    SCHINDLER, 

OF  THE  TEMPLE  ADATH  ISRAEL,   IN  BOSTON. 


JESEitfj  an  Entrotmction  ftg 
MINOT   J.    SAVAGE. 


Boston: 

S.  E.  CASSINO   AND   COMPANY. 
1886. 


COPYRIGHT,  1886, 
Bv  S.  E.  CASSINO  AND  COMPANY. 


ELECTROTYPED  BY 
C.  J.  PETERS  &  SON,  BOSTON. 


Stack 
Annex 


fHg  Belofart 
HENRIETTE    SCHINDLER, 

THIS   BOOK   IS   DEDICATED   IN 
THANKFULNESS, 

BY    THE    AUTHOR. 


PREFACE. 


"WHAT  epoch  would  you  choose  to  have 
lived  in  ? "  a  lady  once  asked  the  late  Chauncey 
Wright.  "The  most  modern,"  was  his  reply. 
Amen,  say  I,  unless  I  could  come  to  life  again 
in  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years.  For  the 
present  most  certainly  is  the  most  cheering  and 
inspiring  age  of  the  world's  history  so  far.  The 
world  is  not  old,  worn  out,  and  hastening  to 
decay.  Politically,  industrially,  and  religiously, 
we  are  seeing  the  first  rays  of  the  dawn  of 
humanity's  long  day.  The  real  "  Golden  Age  " 
is  ahead  of  us,  not  in  the  past.  The  twilight 
has  been  very  long ;  and,  while  the  mists  and 
shadows  have  hung  over  the  earth,  people  have 
easily  imagined  faces  of  hate  and  terror  looking 
down  on  them  out  of  the  sky,  and  have  found 
it  hard  to  recognize  friends  in  the  uncertain 
movements  of  those  about  them.  But  now 
that  the  sun  is  up,  the  sky  is  seen  to  smile,  and 
the  supposed  enemies  of  the  darkness  are  found 
to  be  friends. 

One  of  the  most  striking  indications  of  this 
religious  advance  is  the  coming  together  at  last 


viii       .  Preface. 

of  the  Christian  and  the  Jew.  According  to 
the  narrow  "orthodox"  interpretation  of  these 
words  this  coming  together  may  seem  to  be 
brought  about  by  the  Christian's  ceasing  to  be 
a  Christian,  and  the  Jew's  ceasing  to  be  a  Jew. 
But  if  so,  it  is  only  because  those  terms  have 
been  so  interpreted  as  to  be  too  small  for  the 
growing  religious  life  of  man.  If  either  "  Chris- 
tian" or  "Jew"  is  so  defined  as  to  make  it  less 
than  "man,"  then  it  is  time  for  both  of  them 
to  be  outgrown. 

And  it  is  curious  and  instructive  to  note  the 
genesis  of  the  old  hate  as  well  as  the  genesis  of 
the  new  friendship.  The  Jews,  at  the  time  of 
their  captivity  in  Babylon,  borrowed  the  story  of 
Eden  and  the  Fall  of  Man  from  an  old  Turanian 
epic.  And  this,  together  with  their  own  tradi- 
tions, which  they  came  to  regard  as  the  infallible 
Word  of  God,  became  the  instrument  of  their 
bondage,  and  the  means  of  their  isolation  from 
the  common  life  of  humanity.  This  same  book 
also,  supplemented  by  another  Scripture,  and 
interpreted  in  the  light  of  that  other,  became 
also  the  mental  prison-house  of  Christendom. 
And  this  isolation  in  both  cases  bred  spiritual 
pride  and  hate. 

But  now,  after  long  centuries  of  enmity,  at 
least  some  Christians  and  some  Jews  have 
grown  brave  enough  to  question  their  tradi- 
tions. They  dare  to  be  hospitable  to  new 


Preface.  ix 

ideas,  to  think  that  even  the  religious  world 
may  become  wiser,  and  that  maturity  may  know 
more  than  childhood.  So,  as  they  look  into 
each  other's  faces,  they  are  becoming  conscious 
that  religious  hate  was  born  of  religious  igno- 
rance and  conceit,  and  that  a  truer  knowledge  of 
God  means  a  broader  love  for  man. 

Thus  when  Jew  and  Christian  cease  fighting 
over  what  neither  of  them  knows,  they  find 
themselves  on  the  common  ground  of  human 
need,  human  labor,  and  human  hope.  And  here 
God  meets  them  as  the  common  Father  and 
Helper. 

This  volume  of  lectures  by  a  Jew,  delivered 
to  an  audience  more  than  half  of  which  was 
Christian,  and  treating  frankly  and  freshly  a 
theme  of  equal  interest  to  both,  is  both  prophecy 
and  fulfilment  of  the  broader  religious  life  of 
the  time.  As  such  I  hail  it.  My  standing  here 
to  introduce  my  friend  to  a  larger  audience  than 
that  which  first  greeted  him  does  not  mean  that 
I  am  ready  to  agree  with  everything  he  says.  It 
means  a  much  better  thing  than  that — the  grand 
and  hopeful  fact  that  the  world  at  last  is  willing 
to  hear  an  earnest  man  without  waiting  to  find 
out  whether  it  agrees  with  him  or  not.  We  are 
coming  to  have  faith  in  truth  at  last ;  and  this 
is  much  better  than  believing  that  our  faith  is 
true.  Having  got  rid  of  the  conceit  that  we 
already  have  all  the  truth  that  God  intended  for 


x  Preface. 

the  world,  there  is  some  hope  now  of  our  really 
finding  all  the  truth  we  need.  I  welcome  this 
book  because  I  believe  that  it  is  at  least  honest 
in  its  search.  And  since  the  truth-seeker  is 
the  only  God-seeker,  I  feel  sure  that  they  who 
seek  shall  find  the  Father. 

But  now  my  simple  task  is  done.  An  archi- 
tect once  said  to  me,  many  years  ago,  "Columns 
that  support  nothing,  but  are  set  up  only  to 
look  at,  are  bad  taste  in  architecture.  Have 
only  what  is  of  use ;  then  ornament  that  as 
much  as  you  please."  I  have  often  thought  of 
this  as  applying  in  general  to  all  literary  style. 
And  particularly  have  I  thought  of  it  when 
called  on  to  write  a  preface  to  %  book.  This 
book  needs  no  columns  of  mine  to  support  it. 
It  will  be  able  to  stand  on  its  own  foundations. 
And  I  should  regard  it  as  specially  bad  taste  in 
me  to  set  up  too  long  a  row  of  pillars  in  front  of 
it.  My  only  ambition  has  been  to  set  up  a  few 
very  modest  posts  to  mark  the  path  that  leads 
to  the  doorway,  and  thus  to  indicate  my  be- 
lief that  it  will  be  worth  the  reader's  while  to 
enter  in. 

M.  J.  SAVAGE. 

FEB.  18, 1886. 


CONTENTS. 


PACK 

INTRODUCTORY i 

"Two  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO" 15 

"  THE  CARPENTER'S  SON  " 32 

JUDAISM  THE  MOTHER,  CHRISTIANITY  THE  DAUGHTER   .    50 

A  GENUINE  MESSIAH 66 

THE  SPANISH  INQUISITION 83 

DAVID  RUBENI  AND  SOLOMON  MOLCHO 101 

THE  KABBALAH 118 

SABBATAI  Zwi 134 

CONCLUSION 152 


THE  PITTSBURG  CONFERENCE:  ITS  CAUSES      ....  170 

THE  PITTSBURG  CONFERENCE:  ITS  WORK 186 

MODERN  JUDAISM 206 

THE  SINAITIC  REVELATION 224 

MOSES 239 

PROPAGATION  OF  RELIGION 256 

CHURCHES  AND  THEIR  RELATION  TO  MORALS  ....  276 


MESSIANIC  EXPECTATIONS. 


i. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

DEAS  are  as  mortal  as  men,  who  are  their 
exponents  :  their  origin  and  life  are  similar 
to  that  of  any  human  being  :  they  are  lim- 
ited, as  is  mankind,  by  time  and  space.  Ideas 
are  first  conceived  by  the  human  mind,  and 
pass  a  period  of  embryonic  existence  before 
they  become  strong  enough  to  bear  the  light 
and  the  changing  temperature  of  the  world. 
Then  they  pass  a  term  of  childhood,  during 
which  they  are  subject  to  all  kinds  of  diseases, 
and  the  weak  among  them  die  fast,  like  infants 
in  a  crowded  city.  Those  only  which  are  en- 
dowed with  sufficient  vitality  survive ;  they  grow 
up  to  manhood,  fight  their  battles,  and  not  sel- 
dom conquer  the  world.  After  their  mission  is 
fulfilled  and  their  vitality  exhausted,  they  enter 
into  a  period  of  decrepit  old  age.  Though  they 
are  now  of  little,  if  any,  usefulness,  they  still 
command  the  respect  and  the  reverence  of  the 


2  Messianic  Expectations. 

world  on  account  of  their  age  and  their  former 
renown.  But  every  day  brings  them  nearer  to 
the  grave,  until  their  last  hour  strikes ;  and 
after  a  few  last  convulsions  they  pass  away, 
sometimes  as  unnoticed  as  they  appeared  upon 
the  stage  of  life. 

Before,  however,  their  contemporaries  are 
ready  to  bury  them,  a  dispute  frequently  arises 
as  to  the  reality  of  their  death.  Some  can 
hardly  believe  that  an  idea  which  has  lived  and 
worked  among  them  for  such  a  length  of  time, 
which  has  performed  such  great  and  marvellous 
deeds,  and  which  has  commanded  their  rever- 
ence during  all  their  lifetime,  has  indeed  passed 
away.  They  cling  to  it  with  filial  love  and.  de- 
votion, and  deceive  themselves  with  the  hope 
that  the  departed  idea  is  only  asleep  for  a  while, 
or  in  a  trance  from  which  it  will  surely  awaken 
after  a  few  hours.  Others,  who  have  always 
been  depending  on  the  departed  idea  for  their 
sustenance,  are  fearing  the  loss  of  their  support, 
and  are  unwilling  to  give  up  their  privileges. 
They  too  claim  that  death  has  not  yet  occurred  ; 
that  they  still  observe  some  tokens  of  life ;  and 
they  too  are  opposed  to  a  speedy  interment. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  health  officers,  reason 
and  common  sense,  insist  upon  the  necessity  of 
the  burial.  They  claim  that  the  process  of  dis- 
solution will  infect  the  neighborhood  with  the 
germs  of  disease.  Thus  the  defunct  idea  is 


finally  buried,  in  spite  of  all  remonstrances ; 
and  posterity  either  passes  by  its  grave  indiffer* 
ently  or  places  a  wreath  of  evergreen  upon  it, 
as  the  case  may  be. 

As  there  O9cur  cases  of  death  among  men 
every  day  which,  though  unnoticed  by  the  mul-. 
titude,  cast  their  gloom  over  the  circles  in  which 
the  departed  had  moved,  thus  ideas  are  dying 
away  in  and  with  almost  every  generation,  the 
death  of  which  affects  only  those  who  stood  in 
near  relationship  to  them.  And  thus  have  we, 
the  Israelites  of  the  present  generation,  been 
the  witnesses  of  the  death  of  an  idea  which  was 
conceived  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago  by 
our  nation,  which  passed  its  childhood,  manhood, 
and  old  age  under  its  protection,  and  which  has 
now  expired  after  a  long  and  marvellous  career, 
never  to  be  revived  again. 

The  idea  to  which  I  refer  is  no  other  than 
the  hope  of  our  nation  in  the  advent  of  a  per- 
sonal Messiah  who  would  collect  the  scattered 
remnants  of  Israel  under  one  banner,  re-estab- 
lish them  in  Palestine,  rebuild  Jerusalem  in  its 
former  glory,  and  make  Zion  the  capital  not 
only  of  the  Holy  Land,  but  that  of  the  whole 
world. 

In  the  following  lectures  I  shall  give  the 
eulogy  of  this  idea,  and  trace  its  history  from 
its  very  conception  to  the  hour  of  its  death. 
May  it  suffice,  however,  at  present,  if  I  ex- 


4  Messianic  Expectations. 

plain  the  reasons  first  why  I  selected  such  a 
topic,  and  then  why  I  maintain  that  the  idea  of 
the  advent  of  a  Messiah  has  died  of  late;  is 
stone  dead  now,  and  ought  to  be  buried  by  the 
side  of  similar  defunct  ideas,  in  spite  of  all  op- 
position which  may  be  raised  against  its  final 
interment. 

Although  our  nation  is  one  of  the  oldest,  if 
not  the  oldest,  on  earth  ;  although  it  has  lived 
on  every  continent,  in  every  zone,  in  every 
climate ;  although  we  have  a  history,  a  litera- 
ture of  our  own,  excelled  by  no  other  ;  it  has 
been  our  misfortune  that  we  have  never  been 
understood  by  our  neighbors.  At  best,  we  have 
been  looked  at  with  distrust ;  and  though  we 
have  always  thrown  in  our  lot  with  our  fellow- 
citizens  in  happiness  and  adversity,  though  we 
have  been  born  and  raised  among  them  for 
generations,  we  have  always  been  denounced  by 
them  as  a  foreign  element,  as  a  sect,  the  aspira- 
tions and  hopes  of  which  differed  widely  from 
those  of  the  majority.  This  misunderstanding, 
this  distrust,  has  not  been  removed  even  in  our 
time  and  in  this  our  country.  You  meet  with 
it  wherever  you  turn  in  political,  social,  mercan- 
tile, life.  One  of  the  reasons  why  we  were  and 
are  distrusted  is,  as  it  appears  to  me,  that  we 
were  and  are  still  supposed  to  consider  our 
country  as  only  a  temporary  domicile,  or,  in 
other  words,  that  we  are  suspected  of  indif- 


Introductory.  5 

ference  toward  our  country  and  its  inhabitants. 
We  are  said  to  yearn  for  a  return  to  the  land  of 
our  forefathers,  and  to  be  impatiently  awaiting 
the  time  when  a  Messiah  shall  appear  among 
us,  and  not  only  restore  our  political  indepen- 
dence, but  make  us  the  masters  of  the  world. 
If  this  were  the  case,  if  these  were  indeed  our 
hopes  and  aspirations,  I  must  say  that  our 
neighbors  would  be  perfectly  justified  in  dis- 
trusting us ;  for  I  agree  with  them  that  a  man 
cannot  have  two  countries  at  the  same  time, 
that  he  can  be  attached  with  sincerity  to  only 
one  country.  The  man  will  never  be  a  good 
American  citizen  who  always  dreams  of  a  re- 
turn to  the  country  from  which  he  came,  and 
who  delights  only  in  the  customs  and  usages  of 
the  fatherland. 

But  in  this  regard  our  neighbors  were  and  are 
entirely  mistaken.  Not  one  of  us  cares  to  leave 
this  country  except  on  a  visit ;  not  one  of  us 
harbors  in  his  heart  any  love  for  Palestine,  un- 
less it  is  that  esteem  in  which  classical  ground 
is  held  by  every  man  of  culture  :  there  is  not 
one  among  us  who  expects  the  advent  of  a 
Messiah. 

I  always  took  it  for  granted  that,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  ignorant,  our  fellow-citizens  were 
aware  of  the  fact  that  modern  Judaism  has  long 
since  discarded  the  hope  in  the  advent  of  a  Mes- 
siah, and  that  the  modern  Israelite  is  with  all 


6  Messianic  Expectations. 

his  heart  and  soul  a  citizen  of  the  country  in 
which  he  lives,  and  where  he  is  granted  human 
rights ;  but  how  great  has  been  my  surprise 
when  in  conversation  with  persons  of  high  cul- 
ture, of  eminent  scholarship,  and  of  rare  intel- 
ligence, I  have  found  that  they  still  believe  us 
yearning  for  Palestine  and  praying  for  the  ad- 
vent of  a  Messiah,  that  they  still  think  it  a 
distinguishing  feature  between  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians that  we  believe  the  Messiah  will  come,  and 
they  that  he  has  come.  Open  the  geographi- 
cal text-books  which  your  children  use  at  school, 
and  you  will  find  therein,  in  cold  print,  the 
statement  that  the  Jews  are  a  sect  which  is  ex- 
pecting a  Messiah,  who,  as  the  Christians  claim, 
has  already  come ;  and  thousands  of  children 
memorize  this  erroneous  statement  year  after 
year,  and  hear  it  repeated  Sunday  after  Sunday 
at  church  ;  and  we  do  absolutely  nothing  to 
contradict  it  and  to  rectify  the  error.  It  is 
therefore  time,  high  time,  that  we  make  an  at- 
tempt to  enlighten  our  fellow-citizens  in  regard 
to  our  hopes ;  that  we  show  to  them  the  tomb 
in  which  the  Messianic  expectations  of  our  na- 
tion are  buried. 

But  although  the  misunderstanding  may  be 
partly  laid  before  our  door,  inasmuch  as  we  may 
have  neglected  to  notify  the  Christian  world 
promptly  of  the  demise  of  the  Messianic  idea, 
we  shall  find  that  our  Christian  friends  are  not 


Introductory.  7 

entirely  faultless  ;    for  they  have  never  shown 
any  readiness  to  accept  our  information :    they 
have  reasons  for  not  believing  in  the  death  of 
that  idea,  and  they  remonstrate  against  its  in- 
terment.     The  same  people  who  distrust  our 
patriotism  on  the  ground  that  we  are  expecting 
a  Messiah  and  wishing  to  return  to  Palestine, — 
these  same   people  are  shocked  and  horrified 
when  we  tell  them  that  we  do  not  any  longer 
expect  a  Messiah,  and  have  not   the   faintest 
desire  for  a  political  restoration  of  our  people. 
Now  why  ?      Because  such  intelligence  strikes 
at  the  root  of  their  own  religious  belief.      The 
whole  structure  of  their  religion  rests  upon  the 
belief  of  the  Jewish  nation  in  the  advent  of  a 
Messiah.     As  long  as  this  idea  has  been  strong 
and  vigorous  among  us,  their  building  has  stood 
firm ;  but  from  the  moment  the  idea  expired, 
from  the  moment  its  fallacy  was  demonstrated, 
their   structure   could   not   be   saved    from   its 
downfall.      They  are  actually  placed   between 
the  two  horns  of  a  dilemma,  and  do  not  know 
which  to  choose.     They  do  not  know  at  present 
whether  they  should  prefer  us  to  be  indifferent 
citizens  or  to  be  indifferent  to  Messianic  expec- 
tations.      For    this   very   reason,    it    becomes 
doubly  our  duty  to  spread  that  intelligence  as 
far  as  our  circles  reach,   and  to  show  to  the 
Gentile  world  that  Messianic  expectations  are 
not  essential   to   Judaism ;    that   Judaism   can 


8  Messianic  Expectations. 

exist  without  them ;  that  the  Jewish  mission 
is  not  chained  to  Palestine,  but  embraces  the 
whole  world ;  that,  metaphorically  speaking, 
Israel  itself  is  the  Messiah  whom  God  has 
destined  to  enlighten  the  nations  of  the 
earth. 

In  the  course  of  my  subsequent  lectures,  I 
shall  therefore  show  that  the  Messianic  idea  had 
originally  a  political,  and  by  no  means  a  reli- 
gious or  spiritual,  tendency ;  that  it  never  ap- 
peared as  a  manifestation  of  a  healthy  condi- 
tion of  the  body  politic  of  the  Jewish  people, 
but  rather  as  a  mental  disease,  as  a  mania, 
as  an  epidemic,  which  would  break  out  at 
times  of  great  national  calamity.  I  shall  show 
that  these  epidemics  repeatedly  occurred  with 
greater  or  less  force  up  to  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. I  shall  show  how  the  Messiah,  originally 
political,  was  transformed  by  degrees  into  a 
divine  messenger,  directly  descending  from 
heaven,  who  should  re-assemble,  in  a  miraculous 
manner,  the  Israelites  from  all  the  corners  of 
the  earth,  bring  them  to  Palestine,  raise  the 
dead,  judge  the  whole  world,  past  and  present, 
punish  the  wicked  and  reward  the  faithful,  and 
establish  a  universal  government  and  a  uni- 
versal religion.  I  shall  show  how  the  Messi- 
anic fancy  finally  pined  away  when  the  new  era 
shed  its  full  light  upon  its  absurdities,  until  it 
died  out  entirely. 


Introductory.  9 

The  word  Messiah  itself  deserves  a  close 
scrutiny.  The  Hebrew  word  mashach  means  to 
spread  an  oily  or  greasy  substance  over  a  per- 
son or  an  article ;  but  right  from  the  start  it 
implied  a  sacred  ceremony.  Jacob  poured  oil 
upon  the  stone  upon  which  he  had  rested  and 
enjoyed  that  wonderful  dream.  Moses  is  or- 
dered to  prepare  oil  for  the  special  purpose  of 
anointing  his  brother  Aaron  as  high  priest, 
and  also  to  anoint  the  different  articles  of  fur- 
niture which  were  to  be  used  in  the  tabernacle, 
in  order  to  give  him  and  them  a  certain  sanctity 
in  the  eyes  of  the  people.  The  narrative  and 
command  are  given  in  such  a  matter-of-fact  way 
that  there  cannot  be  the  least  doubt  that,  among 
ancient  nations,  especially  those  with  whom  the 
Israelites  had  come  in  contact,  there  must  have 
been  in  use  a  similar  ceremony  of  installing  the 
highest  officials,  kings  or  priests,  into  their  ex- 
alted position.  Why  oil  was  poured  over  their 
heads,  in  what  connection  oil  stood  with  the 
dignity  of  the  office,  what  the  meaning  of  the 
custom  was  originally,  when  and  where  it  origi- 
nated, is  more  than  I  can  tell ;  and,  I  think, 
more  than  anybody  else  can  tell.  The  fact, 
however,  remains  that  the  ceremony  of  pouring 
oil  upon  the  head  of  a  person  meant  to  conse- 
crate him  for  a  high  political  position.  The 
Mosaic  constitution  had  provided  for  a  hierar- 
chical government.  The  high  priest  alone  was, 


io  Messianic  Expectations. 

therefore,  to  be  anointed.  After  the  decline  of 
the  primitive  priesthood,  we  find  that  Samuel 
anointed  Saul,  and  afterward  David,  as  kings 
over  Israel ;  and  that  from  that  time  it  became 
necessary  for  a  king  to  be  anointed  in  order  to 
be  acknowledged  by  the  people  as  their  legiti- 
mate sovereign.  Mashiach,  or  the  anointed, 
is,  therefore,  synonymous  with  the  word  king. 
Whenever  in  political  language  that  word  has 
been  made  use  of,  it  had  no  other  meaning,  and 
could  have  had  no  other,  than  that  of  legitimate 
king.  None,  however,  of  all  the  so-called  Mes- 
siahs who  have  appeared  in  the  course  of  his- 
tory, has  undergone  or  has  found  it  necessary  to 
undergo  the  ceremony  of  having  oil  poured  over 
his  head  ;  which  evidently  shows  that  the  origi- 
nal meaning  having  been  forgotten  or  obliter- 
ated by  that  time,  the  word  mashiach,  or,  in  the 
Latin  version,  messias,  denoted  simply  a  king, 
but  not  a  divine  messenger. 

The  illustrious  reign  of  David,  and  the  inde- 
pendence which  the  united  kingdom  of  Israel 
enjoyed  during  his  government,  appeared  in  the 
next  centuries  the  more  glorious  the  more  the 
weakness  and  dependence  of  Israel  were  then 
felt.  At  a  time  when  royalty  was  hereditary,  and 
people  not  seldom  waged  war  to  install  an  infant 
upon  a  throne  for  no  other  cause  than  that  it 
was  the  lineal  descendant  of  a  king,  it  was  quite 
natural  that  when  for  the  first  time  the  hope  of 


Introductory.  1 1 

a  regeneration  of  the  Israelitish  kingdom  was 
expressed,  a  Messiah,  or  king,  was  expected, 
who,  descending  from  David,  should  also  be 
heir  to  his  courage,  power,  and  success,  and 
should  bring  back  the  glory  of  the  past. 

All  Messianic  expectations  centred,  there- 
fore, in  the  requirement  of  a  lineal  descent  of 
the  Messiah  from  the  house  of  David.  None  of 
them,  however,  has  ever  proved  his  descent ; 
and  to-day  such  a  proof  has  become  entirely 
impossible,  as  all  traces  have  been  lost. 

The  absurdity  of  upholding  the  hope  in  the 
advent  of  a  Messiah  in  our  time  or  any  future 
time,  will  furthermore  appear  in  a  still  more  glar- 
ing light  if  we  take  away  its  theoretical  fanciful 
garment,  and  translate  it  into  practical  reality. 

Supposing  a  person  should  appear  among  us 
who  should  be  equipped  with  all  the  necessary 
testimonials  of  his  divine  mission,  even  of  his 
lineal  descent  from  David,  if  this  could  improve 
his  title ;  supposing  he  should  by  some  means 
gather  the  Israelites  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
and  settle  them  again  in  Palestine,  —  would  this 
enhance  our  happiness  ?  Supposing,  even,  he 
should  find  for  us  room  and  employment  in  the 
new  country,  supposing  all  impossibilities  should 
be  made  possible  by  him,  let  me  ask  the  one 
question,  What  kind  of  a  government  do  you 
think  the  Messiah  would  establish  ?  The  re- 
publican form  would  be  entirely  out  of  ques- 


12  Messianic  Expectations. 

tion.  Just  imagine  a  Messiah  elected  for  a  term 
of  one,  four,  or  seven  years  ;  just  imagine  a 
Messiah  passing  through  the  ordeal  of  a  politi- 
cal campaign  in  which  not  only  his  own  record, 
but  that  of  his  ancestors  upward  to  David, 
should  be  exposed  and  laid  bare  to  ridicule ! 
No,  those  who  expect  a  Messiah  must  give  up 
forever  the  hope  that  he  would  establish  a  re- 
publican government.  Would  it  be  a  constitu- 
tional monarchy  ?  Equally  absurd.  Imagine  a 
Messiah  quarrelling  with  his  parliament,  and 
the  latter  refusing  to  vote  the  necessary  appro- 
priations !  The  only  imaginable  form  of  govern- 
ment under  a  Messiah  would  be  despotism. 
Under  his  rule  there  would  be  no  free  thought, 
no  free  speech,  and  surely  no  free  press.  No 
opinion  differing  from  that  of  the  Messiah  either 
in  politics  or  religion  would  be  tolerated,  and 
should  we  call  this  happiness  ?  Would  this 
condition  of  slavery  be  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  our 
hopes  and  aspirations  ?  For  this  state  of  men- 
tal stagnation  should  we  be  supposed  to  pray  ? 
Absurd,  thrice  absurd. 

At  the  time  when  the  Jews  were  crowded 
into  the  Ghetto ;  at  the  time  when  our  ancestors 
were  denied  the  most  fundamental  of  all  human 
rights,  namely,  the  right  to  live ;  at  the  time 
when  they  were  chased  from  country  to  coun- 
try, and  had  to  purchase  at  heavy  expense  the 
privilege  of  breathing  the  foul  air  of  their  se- 


Introductory.  1 3 

eluded  quarters  ;  at  the  time  when  ignorance 
ruled  supreme  among  them,  and  still  more 
among  their  oppressors  ;  at  such  a  time  all 
fanciful  hopes  and  fantastic  expectations  were 
permissible,  and  no  picture  of  Messianic  hap- 
piness could  be  overdrawn.  Did  they  care 
what  kind  of  government  a  Messiah  would 
institute  ?  Did  they  care  for  liberty  of  speech 
and  freedom  of  the  press  ?  They  would  have 
kissed  the  feet  of  the  most  selfish  despot,  pro- 
vided he  would  have  granted  them  recognition, 
and  placed  them  on  an  equal  footing  with  their 
fellow  citizens. 

But  we,  the  children  of  the  nineteenth,  cen- 
tury ;  we,  the  free  citizens  of  a  free  republican 
country ;  we,  the  graduates  of  the  best  schools 
the  world  has  seen ;  we,  whose  hands  have 
learned  to  fold  and  cast  a  ballot,  we  do  care 
under  what  kind  of  government  we  are  placed ; 
we  do  love  the  privileges  of  a  republic,  and 
would  not  for  the  world  change  it  for  any  other 
form  ;  we  do  value  free  thought,  free  speech, 
and  free  press,  as  the  highest  attainments  of 
humanity  ;  and  we  shall  never  renounce  them. 
How  could  we,  therefore,  be  expected  to  yearn 
after  Messianic  despotism ;  how  could  we  be 
suspected  of  infidelity  to  a  country  which  grants 
us  these  boons,  and  of  favoring  Palestine,  where 
all  these  glorious  privileges  would  have  no 
room  ? 


14  Messianic  Expectations. 

The  hope  in  the  advent  of  a  Messiah  and  in 
the  restoration  of  Israel  is  surely  dead.  It  has 
died  out  in  the  heart  of  every  intelligent  Ameri- 
can Israelite.  As  with  the  increase  of  knowl- 
edge the  horizon  of  the  human  mind  has  been 
widened,  as  the  universe  has  grown  larger  for  us 
than  it  ever  was  for  bygone  generations,  as  God 
even  has  grown  infinitely  larger,  mightier,  and 
holier  than  ever,  thus  our  hopes  have  grown  in 
proportion.  They  have  lost  their  national  char- 
acter, and  have  become  universal.  We  have 
given  up  all  those  fanciful  notions  of  a  political 
restoration  of  Israel  through  the  instrumentality 
of  a"  Messiah,  and  have  adopted  in  their  place 
the  hope  that  all  humanity  will  sometime  reach 
by  steady  evolution  a  degree  of  happiness  far 
beyond  the  present,  and  far  beyond  description  ; 
a  state  in  which  the  evils  still  adhering  to  man- 
kind will  be  removed,  and  its  virtues  increased 
and  developed.  United,  and  hand  in  hand  with 
all  our  human  brethren,  we  shall  strive  to  ad- 
vance toward  this  goal ;  and  if  there  must  be  a 
distinction  between  us,  let  it  be  that  of  a  gener- 
ous competition  as  to  who  shall  reach  the  mark 
first. 


II. 

"TWO  THOUSAND  YEARS  AGO." 

PON  what  does  the  earth  rest?  This 
question  greatly  agitated  the  minds  of 
people  before  the  time  of  Newton  and 
Copernicus.  The  answer  was  that  it  rests 
upon  the  back  of  an  enormous  elephant.  But 
the  inquisitiveness  of  human  nature  could  not 
be  set  at  rest  so  easily.  Another  question  was 
raised :  Upon  what  does  the  elephant  rest  ? 
Answer :  The  elephant  stands  on  top  of  an 
immense  turtle.  Yet  this  answer  even  did  not 
give  the  desired  satisfaction.  The  new  question 
turned  up :  Upon  what  does  the  turtle  rest  ? 
Instead  of  answering  this  time,  the  scientist  of 
that  age  grumblingly  complained  in  rather 
strong  language  that  one  fool  would  be  likely 
to  ask  more  questions  than  ten  wise  men  could 
answer ;  and  thus  the  conundrum  was  never 
solved. 

Whenever  we  turn  to  historical  research,  we 
are  in  a  similar  quandary.  We  lack  a  basis 
which  could  safely  carry  our  argument.  We 
brag  a  great  deal  about  historical  knowledge 


1 6  Messianic  Expectations. 

and  historical  facts ;  but  whenever  we  are  called 
upon  to  bring  them  to  light  we  find  that  our 
knowledge  is  very  limited  ;  that  there  are  com- 
paratively few  real  historical  facts;  and  that 
our  so-called  history,  with  all  our  argumentation 
on  top  of  it,  floats,  like  that  gigantic  turtle,  upon 
nothing. 

Ancient  history  especially  has  mixed  up  a  few 
grains  of  truth  with  such  a  bulk  of  fiction  that 
it  is  now  well  nigh  impossible  to  sift  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff.  Some  few  scraps  of  statements 
made  by  some  writer  as  the  facts  appeared  to 
him  individually, — for  the  most  part  not  even 
corroborated  by  a  contemporary,  —  have  been 
handed  down  to  us  and  palmed  off  on  us  as 
history.  But  even  if  we  were  ready  and  willing 
to  accept  the  statements  of  a  Herodotus,  a 
Tacitus,  a  Livy,  or  a  Josephus,  as  plain  and 
absolute  truth,  with  our  best  intentions  we 
could  not  supply  another  deficiency ;  namely, 
that  by  the  slow  and  laborious  process  of  copy- 
ing and  recopying  the  manuscript  by  hand,  in 
course  of  time  so  much  of  the  original  must 
have  been  changed,  so  many  interpolations  and 
additions  must  have  been  added  to  it,  that  if 
the  original  writer  should  be  confronted  to-day 
with  his  works,  he  would  probably  deny  his 
authorship.  And,  after  all,  how  did  these 
writers  know  ?  History  was  never  written  at 
the  time  when  the  facts  occurred.  The  current 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago."  17 

of  the  present  is  so  swift  and  rapid,  the  multi- 
tude of  facts  taking  place  at  every  moment  is  so 
overwhelming,  that  the  quickest  camera  could 
not  take  a  correct  negative  of  them.  It  is  fur- 
thermore impossible  for  men  to  be  both  actors 
and  spectators  ;  we  cannot  be  at  the  same  time 
upon  the  stage  and  in  front  of  it.  History, 
therefore,  has  always  been  written  by  posterity. 
Now  you  will  acknowledge  that  it  would  be  a 
difficult  task  to-day  to  write  a  correct  history 
of,  let  me  say,  the  life  of  George  Washington, 
although  we  are  in  possession  of  the  archives 
containing  all  the  official  documents  written  or 
signed  by  him  ;  although  we  have  the  files  of 
the  newspapers  published  at  his  time  at  our  dis- 
posal, and  many  other  advantages  which  the 
historian  of  former  ages  never  had  at  his  com- 
mand. Tacitus,  for  example,  had  never  seen 
Germany  or  Judea  ;  still  he  wrote  extensively 
about  these  countries.  All  his  information  was 
obtained  from  soldiers  who  had  been  there ;  and 
he  took  their  yarns  for  facts  :  and  we  too  have 
become  accustomed  to  take  them  for  facts. 
And  this  very  Tacitus  lived  and  wrote  at  a  time 
when  the  Romans  stood  at  the  summit  of  civili- 
zation, and  poets  and  writers  were  growing  up 
among  them  like  mushrooms. 

In  regard  to  Jewish  history,  and  subsequently 
to  that  of  the  origin  of  Christianity,  the  entan- 
glement is  not  less  bewildering,  although  past 


1 8  Messianic  Expectations. 

generations  have  attempted  to  solve  the  diffi- 
culty and  to  find  a  desirable  historical  basis  by 
cutting  the  Gordian  knot  in  a  somewhat  pecu- 
liar way.  They  picked  out  a  certain  number  of 
literary  works  relating  their  own  history  and 
that  of  their  nearest  neighbors,  and  attributed 
them  to  a  divine  authorship.  They  claimed 
that  God  himself  had  dictated,  word  for  word, 
both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament.  From 
such  divine  statements  there  was  of  course  no 
appeal.  God,  who  knows  the  past  as  well  as 
the  future,  could  not  err;  he  stood  above  all 
human  criticism  :  and  it  was  a  long  time  before 
the  Bible  was  submitted  to  a  close  historical 
scrutiny.  For  centuries,  it  has  been  a  heresy, 
almost  a  crime,  to  doubt  one  iota  of  this  sacred 
literature;  to  doubt  that  Moses  wrote  all  the 
books  attributed  to  him ;  to  doubt  that  the 
Psalms  were  all  written  by  David,  or  the  Eccle- 
siastes  by  Solomon  ;  to  ask  in  what  way  and 
by  what  means  the  first  correct  copy  of  the  ora- 
tions of  the  prophets  was  obtained,  or  to  con- 
sider these  speeches  as  pertaining  to  their  time 
only,  or  to  the  immediate  future ;  and  so  on  ad 
infinitum.  For  the  so-called  believer  there  was 
and  is  no  appeal  from  the  letter  of  scripture. 

In  my  research  after  the  origin  of  the  Mes- 
sianic idea,  I  shall,  therefore,  not  argue  with 
the  believers.  Modern  Judaism  does  not  be- 
lieve blindly  :  it  reasons.  Although  I  take  a 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago."  19 

just  pride  in  the  grand  literature  which  our  na- 
tion has  brought  forth  and  accumulated  ;  al- 
though I  maintain  that  all  literature  is  inspired ; 
that  no  man  can  write  one  single  sentence  un- 
less he  is  divinely  inspired  ;  the  books  of  the 
Bible  are  to  me,  as  they  are  to  every  intelligent 
man  to-day,  products  of  human,  and  not  of 
divine,  authorship. 

All  the  imperfections  which  adhere  to  human 
productions  adhere  also  to  the  Bible.  The  men 
named  as  the  authors  of  the  different  books 
were  not  their  authors  in  reality.  The  real 
authors  lived  and  wrote  much  later  than  the 
facts  occurred  which  they  describe.  They  col- 
lected their  knowledge  from  tradition  and  hear- 
say ;  but  though  they  wrote  in  good  faith,  and 
according  to  their  best  understanding,  without 
the  least  desire  to  impose,  their  views  must 
have  been  limited.  Neither  can  they  be  held 
responsible  for  the  changes  in  the  text  made  by 
copyists  and  revisers  during  the  hundreds  of 
years  which  elapsed  between  them  and  the  first 
authentic  edition  which  is  in  the  possession  of 
our  time.  I  shall,  therefore,  touch  them  but 
slightly ;  and  I  wish  it  understood,  from  the 
start,  that  the  renowned  eleventh  chapter  of 
Isaiah  is  nothing  more  to  me  than  a  beautiful 
picture,  painted  in  Eastern  colors,  of  that  time 
of  peace  which  the  orator  hoped  humanity 
would  sooner  or  later  reach.  If  we  were  to 


2O  Messianic  Expectations. 

picture  that  time  to-day,  we  should  probably 
give  it  a  different  coloring  and  a  less  pictur- 
esque perspective  ;  but  we  should  surely  omit 
the  fourteenth  verse  as  in  contradiction  to  the 
letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  whole  previous  ora- 
tion, and  as  unbecoming  to  a  true  lover  of 
peace.*  With  no  other  or  better  material  at 
hand  than  scripture  offers,  I  am,  however,  com- 
pelled to  rest  some  of  my  arguments  upon  the 
turtle,  and  to  let  the  turtle  float  wherever  it 
pleases  you. 

The  first  traces  of  a  hope  in  the  advent  of 
such  a  person  as  a  Messiah  are  to  be  found  not 
earlier  than  in  the  time  shortly  before,  during, 
and  shortly  after,  the  Babylonian  exile.  The 
calamities  which  had  befallen,  first  the  house  of 
Israel,  and  then  the  house  of  Judah,  had  so 
discouraged  the  Israelites  that  they  despaired 
of  their  own  ability  to  help  themselves;  and 
therefore  they  hoped  for  a  miraculous  interfe- 
rence of  God  in  their  behalf. 

They  yearned  for  the  independence  of  the 
time  of  David,  of  which  tradition  must  have 
brought  to  them  the  most  glorious  reports.  A 
descendant  of  David  was,  therefore,  to  appear 
and  win  for  them  again  the  respect  of  their 

*  Isaiah  n  :  14.  But  they  shall  fly  upon  the  shoulders  of  the 
Philistines  toward  the  west.  Together  shall  they  spoil  the 
children  of  the  east;  upon  Edom  and  Moab  shall  they  lay 
their  hands ;  and  the  children  of  Ammon  shall  obey  them. 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago,"  21 

neighbors,  and  make  their  voice  heard  again  in 
the  council  of  the  nations. 

There  is  nothing  whatever  that  is  unnatural 
or  absurd  in  such  a  hope.  Up  to  the  last  two 
decades,  the  Germans  too  were  "hoping  for  a 
restoration  of  the  German  Empire  to  its  former 
mediaeval  glory.  Hundreds  of  beautiful  myths 
and  legends  predicted  the  return  of  the  Kaiser 
Frederick  I.,  or,  as  he  was  popularly  nicknamed, 
Friedrich  Barbarossa,  "der  Rothbart,"  who,  as 
the  legend  ran,  had  never  died,  but  was  sleep- 
ing in  the  caves  of  the  Kyffhauser  Mountain. 
With  him  a  large  army  of  valiant  knights  was 
said  to  be  concealed  in  the  subterranean  abode, 
who  would,  at  the  proper  season,  awake  and 
break  forth  under  his  leadership  to  liberate 
Germany  and  to  restore  its  union.  It  was  told 
that,  after  every  lapse  of  a  hundred  years,  the 
old  emperor,  whose  beard  had  grown  all  around 
the  marble  table  upon  which  his  head  was  rest- 
ing, would  call  a  shepherd  to  his  cave,  and 
ask  him  whether  the  ravens  were  still  flying 
around  the  mountain-top ;  and  that  upon  his 
affirming  the  fact,  he  would  sadly  exclaim, 

"  Und  wenn  die  schwarzen  Raben 

Noch  fliegen  immer  dar, 
So  muss  ich  nochmals  schlafen 
Verzaubert  hundert  Jahr." 

One  of  the  first  and  signal  deeds  with  which 
Barbarossa  was  expected  to  astonish  the  world 


22  Messianic  Expectations. 

was  to  wage  a  successful  war  against  France. 
What  should  you  think  of  it  if,  a  thousand 
years  hence,  a  historian  should  prove  by  these 
myths  that  the  Germans  had  been  expecting  a 
Messiah,  and  that  he  actually  appeared  in  the 
year  1862,  but  was  called,  not  Barbarossa,  but 
Bismarck  ? 

The  scraps  of  literature  which  we  possess 
relating  to  the  time  before  and  after  the  Baby- 
lonian exile,  and  which  seem  to  speak  of  a 
Messiah,  are  of  about  the  same  character  and 
the  same  value  as  the  legends  of  Barbarossa. 
They  express  the  hope  of  a  down-trodden 
nation  in  a  restoration  to  former  glory. 

However,  after  the  second  Commonwealth 
had  been  firmly  established,  though  by  far 
different  means  than  expected,  after  the  second 
temple  had  been  built,  the  Jews  enjoyed  a 
period  of  unprecedented  prosperity.  The  yoke 
of  the  Persian  Empire  rested  lightly  upon  them. 
They  paid  a  small  tribute ;  and  as  long  as  they 
paid  it  promptly,  they  remained  unmolested. 
All  Messianic  expectations  were  therefore  for- 
gotten. 

During  this  long  season  of  prosperity,  the 
original  Mosaic  doctrine  maintaining  the  belief 
in  one  God  came  to  full  bloom ;  and  idolatry, 
formerly  flourishing  among  them,  died  away 
entirely.  The  laws  collected  and  compiled  by 
Ezra,  and  firmly  planted  by  Nehemiah,  fitted 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago."  23 

admirably  to  their  condition.  They  were  ex- 
cellent laws,  such  as  no  other  nation  could 
boast  of.  The  belief  consequently  grew  up 
that  they  were  of  divine  origin  ;  and  that  as 
long  as  the  nation  should  strictly  adhere  to 
them,  it  would  be  successful  and  prosperous  ; 
but  that  the  slightest  deviation  from  them 
would  again  bring  the  wrath  of  God  upon 
the  people,  and  that  they  should  be  exiled>  as 
their  ancestors  had  been  before. 

When  the  Persian  Empire  fell  a  prey  to 
Alexander  the  Great,  the  condition  of  the  Jews 
was  not  materially  changed.  It  was  of  little 
importance  to  them  to  whom  they  paid  their 
taxes,  whether  to  the  Persians,  Egyptians,  or 
Syrians.  The  closer  intercourse  with  the 
Greeks  tended  in  the  beginning  rather  to 
broaden  their  own  philosophy,  and  the  Greeks, 
who  had  been  accustomed  to  call  all  other 
nations  barbarians,  were,  in  their  turn,  greatly 
astonished  to  find  such  just  laws,  such  deep  phil- 
osophy, such  high  culture,  in  a  nation  of  which 
they  had  scarcely  heard  before. 

But  by  degrees  some  of  the  Jevtish  youth 
became  attracted  by  Greek  culture  and  customs. 
At  that  time  the  cultured  classes  of  the  Greeks 
were  by  no  means  gross  idolaters.  Socrates 
had  not  died  in  vain,  nor  had  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle lived  in  vain.  The  practices  of  Greek 
idolatry  were  at  that  period  a  mere  conse- 


24  Messianic  Expectations.  « 

quence  of  indolence.  Idolatry  had  become  too 
absurd  for  the  educated  classes  to  attempt  to 
wean  the  rest  of  the  people  from  it.  Their 
philosophers  claimed  that  the  lower  classes 
were  in  need  of  some  superstition,  and  advised 
to  let  well  enough  alone.  When  Hellenism 
and  Judaism  finally  clashed  against  each  other, 
the  forcible  introduction  of  Greek  idols  into 
Palestine  was  more  a  matter  of  policy  with 
Antiochus  than  of  sincerity.  Though  a  few 
young  men  sided  with  the  Greeks,  the  mass  of 
the  Jewish  people  were  sincere  in  their  attach- 
ment to  God.  By  no  means  would  they  suffer 
the  least  idolatrous  rite  to  be  practised  in  their 
country ;  and  the  few  who  had  been  influenced 
by  the  Greeks,  and  had  adopted  with  their  cus- 
toms also  the  indolence  and  indifference  of  that 
age  towards  religion,  were  decidedly  in  the 
minority.  While  the  Hasmonean  wars  may 
appear  as  a  religious  warfare,  well-informed 
historians  claim  that  they  were  a  political  con- 
test. Antiochus  wished  to  form  one  large  and 
well-cemented  empire  of  all  the  small  nations 
which  were  tributary  to  him,  that  he  might  be 
able  to  withstand  the  power  of  the  Roman 
Republic,  which,  since  the  fall  of  Carthage  and 
Corinth,  had  already  spread  its  threatening 
shadows  in  an  eastern  direction.  He  thought 
it  good  policy  to  tie  Judea  to  his  domain  by 
the  bonds  of  the  same  superstition,  as  all  relig- 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago"  25 

ion  was  called  by  the  philosophers  of  that  age. 
But  his  policy  was  a  mistaken  one.  Just  here 
the  Jews  drew  the  line.  He  would  have  found 
them  willing  to  pay  any  tribute  whatsoever  and 
to  render  military  service ;  but  they  would  not 
permit  their  religious  autonomy  to  be  touched. 
They  flew  to  arms,  and  under  the  leadership 
of  the  noble  Hasmonean  family,  a  contest 
raging  for  several  generations  followed,  which 
was  carried  on  with  changing  luck  on  both 
sides.  At  the  close  of  these  wars,  they  found 
to  their  greatest  surprise  that  they  had  gained 
more  than  they  had  ever  expected.  They  had 
originally  fought  for  home  rule  only  :  now  they 
found  themselves  independent,  their  country 
enlarged,  with  a  king,  —  a  descendant  not  of 
David  but  of  the  Hasmonean  house,  —  at  their 
head.  They  did  not  know  how  to  account  for 
their  good  luck. 

The  people  who  had  taken  up  arms  for  their 
God  and  their  religion,  and  who  had  been  called 
Chasidium,  the  pious,  to  distinguish  them  from 
the  frivolous  Hellenistic  element,  now  split 
into  two  factions  on  account  of  it. 

The  greater  part  believed  that  their  success 
was  the  result  of  their  obedience  to  the  laws  of 
God  ;  that  God  had,  in  fact,  interfered  in  their 
behalf ;  and  that  therefore  their  mission  was 
plain  and  self-evident.  They  must  enforce  the 
law  most  rigorously,  and  refrain  from  all  inter- 


26  Messianic  Expectations. 

course  with  other  nations,  especially  with  the 
Greek.  They  were  called  Pharisees,  Perushim, 
interpreters  of  the  law  ;  but  they  were  consci- 
entious, and  by  no  means  hypocrites.  The 
other  class  had  seen  more  of  the  world.  It 
was  composed  of  all  those  who  not  only  had 
been  the  leaders  in  previous  battles,  but  who 
had  obtained  as  statesmen,  by  shrewd  political 
wire-pulling,  more  than  their  swords  could  ever 
have  won  for  them.  They  knew  the  secret  of 
their  success.  Their  good  luck  had  been  the 
result  of  Roman  influence.  That  great  and  in- 
satiable republic  had  stretched  its  hand  nearer 
and  nearer  towards  its  prey.  Divide  and  rule 
had  been  its  motto.  It  had  taken  up  quite  dis- 
interestedly, as  it  then  appeared,  the  Jewish 
cause,  as  well  as  that  of  the  other  tributaries  of 
which  the  Syrian  kingdom  was  composed,  and 
had  assumed  the  r61e  of  a  protector  over  them. 
Little  did  these  small  nations  dream  at  that 
time  that  after  the  fall  of  Syria  and  Egypt  their 
turn  would  come  to  be  annexed  to  the  Roman 
Empire. 

The  Sadducees,  as  they  were  called,  who  had 
been  prominent  in  all  the  political  manoeu- 
vrings,  knew,  therefore,  too  well  that  rigor  and 
a  blind  belief  in  the  help  of  God  would  not  do  ; 
that  they  must  yield  to  a  compromise ;  or,  in 
other  words,  that  they  must  not  totally  ignore 
the  present.  This  split  in  the  formerly  com- 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago"  27 

pact  party  accelerated,  though  it  did  not  cause, 
the  doom  of  the  Jewish  nation. 

Indeed,  their  dream  of  independence  and  the 
lustre  of  the  Hasmonean  dynasty  were  of  a 
short  duration  only.  Judea  became  a  Roman 
province  before  the  inhabitants  became  aware 
of  it ;  and,  while  the  Roman  senate  left  to 
them  some  shadow  of  self-government,  it  had 
already  fastened  the  shackles  to  the  victim. 
When  the  Jews  came  to  themselves,  they  found 
themselves  tied,  hand  and  foot,  in  the  power  of 
an  almighty  foe.  Their  condition,  indeed,  was 
then  most  pitiable.  Their  independence  was 
crushed,  their  king  a  mere  puppet  in  the  hands 
of  the  Roman  Caesars,  their  high  priest  without 
authority,  their  laws  set  at  nought  by  the 
whims  of  the  Roman  proconsul.  Roman  le- 
gions fattened  at  the  public  expense  :  rapacious 
Roman  procurators  drained  the  resources  of  the 
land  by  heavy  taxation. 

Jerusalem  had  then  three  separate  courts, 
which  rivalled  one  another  in  luxury.  There 
was  the  high  priest  and  his  household,  and  with 
him  all  the  temple  functionaries,  who  were  sup- 
ported in  grand  style  by  the  reverence  of  the 
people  and  from  fear  that  God  would  withdraw 
his  protection  from  them  unless  every  tax  which 
was  due  to  the  temple  were  scrupulously  paid. 
Next  came  the  royal  household,  the  dignity  of 
which  was  to  be  upheld  at  a  heavy  expense. 


28  Messianic  Expectations. 

Finally,  there  was  the  Roman  governor,  who 
knew  perfectly  well  how  to  make  a  public  office 
pay,  and  who  imitated  the  extravagance  of  Rome. 
No  wonder  that  times  were  hard  for  the  tax- 
payer ;  no  wonder  that  the  peaceful  real-estate 
owner  grew  riotous  ;  no  wonder  that  the  burden 
became  unbearable,  and  that  the  nation  despaired 
of  itself.  At  this  period  of  national  calamity, 
at  the  time  when  the  days  of  the  Jewish  com- 
monwealth were  already  numbered,  the  hope 
broke  forth  with  new  vigor  that,  as  human 
efforts  were  of  no  avail,  God  himself  would, 
must,  interfere  and  set  matters  aright.  The 
first  commonwealth  had  fallen  on  account  of 
the  sins  of  their  forefathers  ;  but  this  time  they 
were  innocent :  they  had  strictly  obeyed  the 
law ;  and  God,  if  he  were  just,  was  in  honor 
bound  to  come  to  their  rescue.  Neither  was 
there  any  cause  to  doubt  the  ability  of  God  to 
save  them.  Had  he  not  returned  the  captives 
to  the  land  of  their  forefathers  ?  Had  he  not 
assisted  their  very  parents  and  grandparents  in 
their  struggle  against  the  power  of  Syria  ? 
There  was  not  the  least  doubt  in  their  minds 
that  the  present  time  was  only  a  time  of  trial, 
and  that  God  would  soon  rectify  matters. 
During  the  Hasmonean  era,  the  prophetical 
books  had  become  quite  popular.  They  were 
now  read  and  re-read  with  eagerness,  and  were 
naturally  interpreted  to  fit  the  present  needs 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago"  29 

and  hopes.  The  idea  spread  that,  as  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Hasmonean  house  had  not  the 
courage  to  oppose  the  greed  of  rapacious  Rome, 
they  had  forfeited  their  right  to  the  throne  ; 
and  that  a  scion  of  the  house  of  David  would 
therefore  be  sent  by  God,  who  should  drive  the 
Romans  out  of  the  country,  and  bring  back  the 
former  independence  and  glory. 

The  maltreated,  overtaxed  farmer,  the  unem- 
ployed artisan,  the  bankrupt  merchant,  the  de- 
moralized soldier,  the  aristocrat  who  had  to  bend 
his  head  before  the  haughty  Roman  magistrate, 
—  they  all  drank  eagerly  the  hope  of  the  advent 
of  a  Messiah,  and  awaited  impatiently  the  favor- 
able moment  when,  sword  in  hand,  they  could 
shake  off  the  yoke  of  the  oppressor ;  and  they 
had  not  the  least  doubt  that,  at  that  auspicious 
moment,  God  would  send  the  right  man  to  lead 
them  to  success. 

But  there  were  also  people  who  were  not  half 
so  sanguine  as  their  more  zealous  neighbors. 
They  knew  that  a  revolt  against  Rome  would 
be  useless.  Rome  could  only  take  of  him  who 
owned  property  ;  and  it  was  only  for  the  im- 
provement of  the  condition  of  the  property- 
holder  that  war  was  to  be  undertaken.  They 
sought,  therefore,  safety  in  a  change  of  the 
whole  social  system.  Nihilistic  and  communis- 
tic tendencies  began  to  develop.  These  classes 
too  were  expecting  the  man  who  should  have 


30  Messianic  Expectations, 

the  power  of  establishing  an  ideal  society  after 
their  heart ;  and  who  would,  according  to  the 
peculiar  language  which  they  used,  save  the 
world. 

The  hope  in  the  advent  of  a  king  duly 
anointed  for  his  office,  who  would  improve  the 
state  of  affairs,  grew  stronger  and  mightier 
every  day  the  more  unbearable  the  national 
misery  grew.  It  was  again  the  natural  growth 
of  the  unhealthy  condition  of  the  time  ;  and  the 
sicker  the  national  body  grew,  the  wider  spread 
and  the  .more  intense  grew  the  mania. 

The  Roman  authorities  on  their  part  wished 
for  nothing  better  than  that  a  crisis  should  be 
reached  as  soon  as  possible  ;  and  they  rather 
stimulated  a  revolt  of  the  people,  in  order  to 
obtain  a  pretext  for  crushing  the  nation  at  once. 
They,  too,  were  wishing  that  the  Messiah,  with 
whose  appearance  they  were  threatened  day  by 
day,  would  come.  They  had  nothing  to  lose, 
and  all  to  win.  And  thus  day  by  day  added  to 
the  fuel,  which,  if  fired  by  an  over-zealous  or 
uncautious  hand  would  spread  its  conflagration 
over  the  land. 

In  vain  did  the  cautious  among  the  people 
raise  their  voice  of  warning ;  they  could  not 
undo  what  generations  had  prepared.  Such 
was  the  condition  of  the  time  shortly  before  the 
destruction  of  the  second  temple  ;  and  the  first 
flash  of  lightning  which  appeared  and  disap- 


"  Two  Thousand  Years  Ago"  3* 

peared  in  the  political  sky  of  the  second  com- 
monwealth, the  appearance  of  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth, predicted  the  coming  hurricane  which 
swept  the  Jewish  nation,  politically,  from  the 
face  of  the  earth. 


III. 

"THE  CARPENTER'S  SON." 

f  T  is  not  without  some  hesitation  nor  without 
jf  some  embarrassment  that  I  open  the  dis- 

T  cussion  of  the  life  and  mission  of  a  man 
who,  though  he  sprang  from  Jewish  parent- 
age, and  is  said  to  have  lived  the  life  of  a  con- 
scientious Jew,  has  been  placed  between  our 
race  and  the  rest  of  civilized  humanity  as  a 
barrier  to  exclude  us  from  a  more  intimate 
intercourse  with  our  fellow-men ;  whose  very 
name  still  alienates  from  us  to-day  the  affection 
of  our  fellow-citizens,  though  almost  nineteen 
centuries  have  passed  since  its  bearer  walked 
the  ground  of  Palestine.  Neither  must  I  lose 
sight  of  the  veneration  in  which  he  is  held  by 
our  Christian  friends,  many  of  whom  love  in 
him  the  ideal  of  a  magnanimous,  high-minded, 
and  noble  man ;  while  millions  of  others  still 
confide  in  him  in  life  and  in  death,  and  adore 
and  worship  him  as  a  God.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
more  than  simple  courtesy  on  our  part  if  we 
respect  their  feelings,  as  we  wish  our  own  re- 
spected, and  if  we  discuss  our  subject  with  as 


"  The  Carpenters  Son"  33 

much  careful  delicacy  and  tenderness  as  we  can 
possibly  grant  to  a  historical  research,  which  is 
intended  not  to  obtain  notoriety,  but  to  instruct ; 
to  weed  out  existing  prejudices,  and  to  establish 
a  better  understanding  between  us.  I  beg  you, 
therefore,  to  distinguish  well  between  the  ideal' 
Jesus,  who  has  been  a  creation  of  Christianity, 
and  the  historical  Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  he  lived 
and  died. 

You  can  imagine  at  any  time,  if  you  so  choose, 
a  human  body  in  such  giantlike  proportions  that 
its  head  should  reach  the  zenith  while  its  feet 
should  touch  the  nadir.  In  the  very  same  way, 
you  may  imagine  all  the  qualities  of  the  human 
soul  raised  to  their  highest  degree  of  perfection. 
We  Israelites  are  accustomed  to  attribute  these 
qualities  of  the  spirit  in  their  highest  perfection 
to  an  invisible  God  ;  to  the  One  God  who  has 
created  the  universe,  and  supports  and  governs 
it  in  wisdom  and  love ;  while  our  Christian 
friends  have  become  accustomed  to  affix  these 
very  same  attributes  to  a  human  form,  to  that 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Herein  we  differ ;  and, 
therefore,  I  shall  have  nothing  to  say  concern- 
ing the  ideal  structure  which  has  been  built  up 
during  the  last  nineteen  centuries,  which  is  in 
the  process  of  building  yet,  and  which  will  not 
be  finished  before  humanity  has  reached  the 
highest  round  on  the  ladder  of  civilization. 

I  beg  also  to  differ  historically  in  two  other 


34  Messianic  Expectations. 

points  with  oar  Christian  friends  ;  and  I  hope 
they  will  not  consider  my  utterances  as  disre- 
spectful. I  maintain  that  Jesus  was  not  the 
founder  of  Christianity ;  that  he  never  planned 
it  nor  laid  its  foundation ;  but  that  his  personal- 
ity has  been  brought  into  the  Church,  and  used 
as  its  corner-stone.  I  claim,  furthermore,  that 
there  are  no  historical  sources  whatsoever  from 
which  we  could  derive  authentic  information 
concerning  his  life,  his  deeds,  and  his  death. 
This  point  is  of  such  grave  importance  that  I 
must  dwell  on  it,  with  your  permission,  a  minute 
or  two  before  I  proceed  one  step  further. 

There  are  only  three  sources  from  which  it 
has  become  customary  te  quote  in  regard  to 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  The  first  and  foremost  of 
them  is  the  New  Testament.  Again  I  must 
caution  my  hearers  that  I  do  not  believe  in  a 
divine  authorship  of  any  book  whatsoever,  be  it 
called  the  Old  or  the  New  Testament,  and  that 
I  shall  always  refrain  from  arguing  a  historical 
point  with  a  so-called  believer.  If  one  wishes 
to  believe  that  Homer  was  divinely  inspired,  and 
that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  dictated  to  him 
by  God  himself,  and  that  therefore  these  books 
must  be  true,  word  for  word,  I  shall  not  object. 
Let  him  believe,  then,  that  Cyclops  Polyphemus 
had  but  one  eye  in  his  forehead,  and  that  Ulysses 
blinded  him ;  let  him  believe  that  the  hero 
visited  Hades,  and  conversed  with  his  former 


"  The  Carpenter's  Son"  35 

friends ;  let  him  believe  whatever  he  pleases. 
But  when  we  come  to  discuss  historical  facts, 
we  must  be  unhampered  by  belief.  Bibliogra- 
phers have  long  since  proved  that  the  Four 
Gospels,  which,  after  all,  contradict  one  another 
in  important  points,  were  written  more  than  a 
century  later  than  the  death  of  Jesus ;  not  by 
eye-witnesses,  but  by  people  who  collected  their 
material  from  tradition,  and  who  had  already  a 
principle,  a  theory,  to  affirm  by  their  story.  I' 
do  not  question  at  all  their  veracity  or  sincerity; 
but  they  lacked  for  their  narrative  the  authentic 
material,  and  could  not  help  being  biassed  in 
their  judgment.  These  literary  products  lose 
still  more  in  the  eye  of  the  critic  by  the  fact 
that  the  original  text  has  been  tampered  with 
since.  Only  of  late,  a  scrap  of  parchment  has 
been  discovered  which  contains  a  passage  from 
one  of  the  Gospels.  Scientists  place  its  age  as 
far  back  as  the  third  and  fourth  century.  In  it 
an  important  passage,  relating  to  the  promised 
return  of  Jesus,  is  entirely  omitted ;  which  would 
prove,  if  it  proves  anything,  that  still  later  than 
the  fourth  century  interpolations,  if  we  shall  not 
call  them  falsifications,  of  the  original  text,  must 
have  taken  place.  A  jury  which  finds  the  tes- 
timony of  a  witness  unreliable  in  one  point 
generally  throws  out  his  testimony  entirely ; 
and  so  does  the  historian.  To  him  the  Gospels 
are  of  little  historical  value. 


36  Messianic  Expectations. 

The  second  source  is  the  historian  Josephus, 
who  lived  at  the  time  of  Jesus,  and  consequently 
must  have  known  of  him,  if  the  latter  had,  in- 
deed, been  a  distinguished  person  or  of  any 
prominence.  Though  he  gave  considerable 
space  to  the  narrative  of  minor  events,  Josephus 
originally  never  mentioned  him.  The  cele- 
brated and  frequently  quoted  ^passage  in  his 
Antiquities  (book  xviii.,  chapter  3,)  has  been 
'condemned  by  authorities,  such  as  Nathaniel 
Lardner,  as  an  interpolation  ;  and  Origen,  the 
great  Christian  writer  of  the  third  century, 
shows  by  his  writings  contra  Celsum  that  he  did 
not  know  of  that  passage,  which  consequently 
must  have  been  inserted  much  later  and  for  a 
purpose.*  Another  historian,  Justus  of  Tibe- 

*  I  shall  briefly  give  the  arguments  of  Dr.  Lardner,  a  very 
learned  Presbyterian  clergyman,  who  flourished  in  the  early 
part  of  the  last  century.  The  passage  reads  thus :  — 

"  At  the  time  lived  Jesus,  a  wise  man,  if  he  may  be  called  a 
man;  for  he  performed  many  wonderful  works.  He  was  a 
teacher  of  such  men  as  received  the  truth  with  pleasure.  He 
drew  over  to  him  many  Jews  and  Gentiles.  This  was  the 
Christ;  and  when  Pilate,  at  the  instigation  of  the  chief  men 
among  us,  had  condemned  him  to  the  cross,  they  who  before 
had  conceived  an  affection  for  him  did  not  cease  to  adore  him. 
For  on  the  third  day  he  appeared  to  them  alive  again;  the  divine 
Prophets  having  foretold  these  and  many  other  wonderful  things 
concerning  him;  and  the  sect  of  Christians,  so  called  from  him, 
subsists  to  this  time." 

I  have  italicized  the  parts  which  Dr.  Lardner  criticised  at 
length,  occupying  several  pages  (London  edition,  vol.  vi.,  p. 
487),  but  which  I  shall  abridge.  They  are  as  follows :  — 


"  The  Carpenter  s  Son."  37 

rias,  lived  at  the  same  time ;  but  not  a  word  did 
he  mention  about  the  man  who,  according  to  the 
Gospels,  must  have  created  quite  a  stir. 

1.  This  paragraph  is  not  referred  to  by  any  Christian  writer 
before  Eusebius  (in  the  fourth  century),  —  the  Greek  fathers, 
such  as  Justin  Martyr,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Tertullian,  and 
Origen,  and  the  Latin  fathers  Minucius,  Felix,  Cyprian,  Arro- 
bius  and  Lactantius,  nor  by  Chrysostom,  a  contemporary  of 
Eusebius.    These  were  all  well  acquainted  with  the  writings  of 
Josephus,  and  quote  him  in  their  works.     Dr.  L.  says :     "  So 
extraordinary  a  testimony  to  our  Saviour,  in  so  celebrated  a 
Jewish  writer,  should  not  have  been  unknown  to  them,  if  it  had 
been  in  him." 

2.  This  passage  was  wanting  in  copies  of  Josephus  which 
were  seen  by  Photius  in  the  ninth  century.    The  said  writer  in 
his   Biblioteque   had  no   less  than  three   articles   concerning 
Josephus,  and  never  notices  such  an  important  testimony;  nay, 
more;  Photius  says:   "  This  writer  (Josephus),  being  a  preju- 
diced Jew,  makes  not  even  the  least  mention  concerning  _him 
(Christ)  or  the  miracles  done  by  him." 

3.  It  interrupts  the  narrative ;  Josephus  begins  the  chapter 
with  a  riot  that  took  place  in  Jerusalem,  in  which  a  number  of 
Jews  were  killed  and  wounded ;  then  comes   the   paragraph 
above  quoted,  and  next  follows  that  another  calamity  befel  the 
Jews.     The  reader  will  readily  perceive  that  the  paragraph 
which  was  stuck  in  between  the  first  and  second,  or  another 
calamity,  is  an  interpolation ;  it  is  out  of  place. 

4.  If  Josephus  was  a  Jew,  he  admitted  too  much;  and  if 
a  Christian,  he  said  too  little  about  Christ.     I  must  add  only 
one  quotation —  the  idea  would  not  strike  an  ordinary  reader. 
He  drew  over  to  him  many  Jew^  and  Gentiles.     That  is  not 
true  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  if  intended  of  his  own  personal  preach- 
ing ;  it  was  done  indeed  afterward.     But  this  manner  of  speak- 
ing is  more  suitable  to  a  writer  of  the  second  or  third  century 
than  to  Josephus. 

Gibbon,  in  his  Decline  and   Fall   of  the   Roman  Empire 
(Harper's  ed.,  chap.  16,  p.  298,  in  a  note),  says :  "The  passage 


38  Messianic  Expectations. 

The  third  source  is  the  Talmud;  but  here 
again  we  find  an  ominous  silence  concerning 
him.  Not  before  the  time  that  our  ancestors 
were  called  upon  to  contest  the  religious  struc- 
ture which  began  to  grow  up  upon  him  as  its 
corner-stone,  and  to  defend  themselves  against 
cahimnious  charges,  is  he  mentioned,  and  then 
only  slightly. 

Besides  these  three  sources,  another  argument 
is  frequently  brought  into  use  in  order  to  prove 
not  only  his  existence,  but  his  greatness.  Be- 
hold, say  our  Christian  friends,  the  marvellous 
growth  of  Christianity  !  See  how  it  revolution- 
ized the  world,  how  it  civilized  the  most  bar- 
barous nations !  Could  such  a  success  have 
been  achieved  if  its  founder  had  not  been  a 

concerning  Jesus  Christ  which  was  inserted  into  the  text  of 
Josephus  between  the  time  of  Origenand  that  of  Eusebius  may 
furnish  an  example  of  no  vulgar  forgery ;  and  if  any  doubt  still 
remains  (here  he  refers  to  several  writers  who  have  proved  it  a 
falsity),  it  would  appear  pedantic  were  I  to  copy  the  names  of 
eminent  theologians  who  have  written  against  or  rejected  the 
said  passage ;  the  proofs  that  it  forms  one  of  the  numerous 
frauds  which  the  Christians  of  the  first  three  centuries  deemed 
a  virtue  are  overwhelming.  The  truth  is,  had  Jesus  really 
.  been  the  important  personage  represented,  Josephus  would 
doubtless  have  noticed  him  either  as  a  God,  a  prophet,  or  an 
impostor ;  but  as  he  mentions  John  the  Baptist,  and  is  utterly 
silent  about  Jesus,  we  may  reasonably  conclude  either  there 
was  no  such  person,  or  that  he  was  then  deemed  too  insignifi- 
cant, and  that  Josephus  never  heard  about  the  crucifixion  or 
anything  concerning  him." — From  an  article  of  Jacob  Norton, 
published  in  the  American  Israelite  in  April,  1864. 


"  The  Carpenters  Son"  39 

man  of  great  prominence,  if  he  had  not  been 
able  to  impress  his  contemporaries  with  his 
mission  to  such  an  extent  as  was  needed  for 
the  future  success  ?  Granted,  they  say,  that 
there  are  no  authentic  literary  evidences  to  be 
found  concerning  his  life  and  deeds ;  is  the 
mere  existence  of  the  Church  not  evidence 
enough  for  his  greatness  ?  Do  not  facts  prove 
more  than  words  ? 

This  argument,  however  rational  and  reasona- 
ble it  may  appear,  stands  upon  weak  and  tender 
feet.  Indeed,  if  the  plans  for  the  Christian 
Church  had  emanated  from  him,  if  its  doctrines 
had  been  promulgated  by  him,  if  its  system  had 
been  suggested  by  him,  then  we  could  conclude 
from  the  work  about  its  creator.  But,  even 
according  to  Christian  sources,  nobody  dreamed 
less  of  such  a  structure  than  its  supposed  origi- 
nator. Christianity  was  not  his  work  ;  it  was 
the  product  of  peculiar  circumstances,  which  all 
worked  together  in  such  a  marvellous  manner 
that  we  cannot  fail  to  see  the  finger  of  God  in 
its  origin  and  development.  The  downfall  of 
Hellenistic  idolatry,  which  had  been  prepared 
by  Greek  philosophy  long  before ;  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  Roman  Republic  and  the  decline  of 
the  Roman  Empire  ;  the  great  migration  of 
nations,  which,  issuing  from  the  north,  took  a 
southward  course,  and  changed  the  geography 
of  the  world ;  the  death  of  antique  civilization 


40  Messianic  Expectations. 

in  the  waves  of  barbarism,  which,  like  a  second 
flood,  burst  upon  it,  and  covered  the  whole 
world  for  a  considerable  length  of  time,  —  all 
these  circumstances  together  produced  what 
to-day  is  called  Christianity.  Nothing  can  live 
in  this  sublunary  world  unless  it  is  marked  for 
life  by  God  Almighty.  Nothing  succeeds  un- 
less God  has  destined  it  for  success  ;  and  thus 
has  Christianity  a  place  on  this  earth  and  a 
mission  to  fulfil  as  well  as  Judaism.  And  in 
the  course  of  my  lectures  I  shall  with  pleasure 
give  due  acknowledgment  to  the  great  work 
which  Christianity  has  indeed  performed. 

Taking  it  all  in  all,  what  may  we  reasonably 
presume  about  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  so-called 
Messiah  ?  Although  volumes  have  been  written 
concerning  his  life  and  deeds,  his  whole  history 
could  be  inscribed  almost  upon  the  nail  of 
a  thumb. 

Jeshu,  an  abbreviation  of  Joshua,  and  Latin- 
ized into  Jesus,  was  born  of  humble  parentage. 
He  was  the  son  of  Joseph,  a  poor  carpenter, 
and  Miriam,  his  wife,  who  were  also  the  parents 
of  several  other  children.  It  matters  little  to 
the  historian  that  millions  of  people  still  ascribe 
to  him  a  divine  origin,  and  believe  him  the  off- 
spring of  an  immaculate  conception.  There 
are  many  more  millions  of  people  who  believe 
to-day  the  very  same  story,  but  apply  it  to 
another  man,  to  Buddha.  Not  only  are  such 


"  The  Carpenters  Son."  41 

statements  unhistorical,  but  I  dare  say  that  the 
passages  in  tKe  Gospels  relating  to  them  were 
never  written  by  a  Jewish  author  :  they  were 
the  products  of  a  Grecian  pen.  The  Greeks 
believed  in  the  intercourse  of  their  gods  with 
mortal  women,  and  saw  no  disgrace  in  such  an 
adultery.  All  their  heroes  were  demi-gods. 
Even  Alexander  the  Great  attempted  to  insinu- 
ate that  Philip  was  not  his  real  father,  and  that 
he  was  the  son  of  a  god.  Greek  vanity  cared 
little  that  the  chastity  of  their  women  was  ques- 
tioned whenever  the  customary  compliment 
was  rendered  to  a  man  by  calling  him  the  son 
of  a  god.  The  Greek  and  Roman  populace 
would  have  never  believed  in  Jesus  the  man, 
the  reformer,  the  martyr,  or  the  Messiah ;  but 
it  was  easy  for  them  to  accept  him  as  the  son 
of  the  Jewish  God,  Jehovah.  The  Jews,  on  the 
contrary,  held  the  chastity  of  their  women  in 
so  high  a  respect  that  they  would  not  permit 
even  a  god  to  violate  it. 

About  his  childhood  and  early  education 
nothing  is  known.  He  is  said  to  have  learned 
the  trade  of  his  father,  that  of  a  carpenter. 
Grown  up  to  the  age  of  manhood,  he  joined  the 
sect  of  the  Essenes,  which  was  mostly  com- 
posed of  artisans,  and  represented  the  socialistic 
and  nihilistic  element  of  which  I  have  spoken 
in  my  last  lecture.  They  despised  all  earthly 
possessions,  would  not  hold  property,  lived  to- 


42  Messianic  Expectations. 

gether  in  small  bands,  sharing  everything  in 
common.  They  would  not  marry :  they  believed 
that  a  change  for  the  better  could  be  effected 
only  by  an  ascetic  life,  and  that  the  Messiah 
whom  every  Jew  was  expecting  at  that  time 
would  transform  the  whole  world  into  one 
large  communistic  brotherhood,  in  which  there 
should  be  neither  rich  nor  poor,  and  from  which 
all  the  passions  adhering  to  mankind  should 
be  removed.  He  may  have  grown  into  promi- 
nence in  the  rural  districts  where  he  sojourned. 
He  may  have  spoken  of  the  change  which  he 
expected  to  come  over  the  world,  with  such  a 
sincerity  that,  as  is  quite  natural,  his  friends 
expected  him  to  produce  the  change,  and  may 
have  looked  at  him  as  the  Messiah.  Let  me 
state  right  here  that  the  name  Messiah,  or,  as 
it  is  in  Hebrew,  Mashiach,  is  a  misnomer,  if 
applied  to  him  ;  for  he  never  was  anointed  for 
his  mission  by  any  authority  whatsoever,  real 
or  fictitious.  How  can,  therefore,  a  man  be 
called  Mashiach,  the  Anointed,  the  Christ,  if  he 
never  was  anointed?  Even  Christian  sources 
do  not  claim  that  the  act  of  anointment  was 
ever  performed  on  him. 

Finally,  perhaps  he  learned  to  believe  in 
himself.  A  great  many  people  do  believe  in 
themselves  without  being  conceited.  There 
would  be  no  heroism  if  the  hero  did  not  believe 
in  his  own  ability  to  perform  the  heroic  deed. 


"  The  Carpenter's  Son."  43 

Young  men  especially  are  apt  to  carry  such  a 
belief  to  an  extreme  ;  and  he  was  a  young  man. 
At  the  time  of  his  death,  he  was  not  older  than 
thirty-three  years  ;  the  most  dangerous  period 
of  life,  in  which  the  young  man  attempts  to 
transform  his  airy  ideals  into  tangible  facts. 

The  most  critical  season  of  the  year  was,  at 
that  time,  the  Passover  Festival ;  a  festival 
celebrated  in  remembrance  of  the  liberation  of 
Israel  from  Egyptian  bondage.  Every  male 
person  was  bound  to  be  present  in  Jerusalem 
during  the  seven  days  of  this  festival ;  and  the 
spirit  of  liberty  ran  higher  then  than  usual. 
The  Roman  procurator  found  it,  therefore, 
always  necessary  to  be  present  in  person  in 
the  city,  in  order  to  quell  any  disturbance  which 
was  likely  to  arise,  and  to  nip  every  revolt  in 
the  bud.  You  will  perhaps  understand  much 
better  the  danger  which  the  return  of  every 
Passover  Festival  brought  to  the  front,  if  you 
place  yourselves  for  one  moment  in  the  condi- 
tion of  that  time. 

Supposing  our  cherished  Republic  should 
have  been  changed  into  a  despotic  government ; 
supposing  some  other  nation  stronger  than  we 
should  defeat  us  in  battle,  and  should  keep  us 
in  a  state  of  servitude ;  supposing  that  the 
indignation  of  the  American  people  should 
watch  for  an  opportune  moment  to  break  the 
chains  of  such  a  slavery ;  would  not  the  Fourth 


44  Messianic  Expectations. 

of  July  then  become  the  most  critical  and  dan- 
gerous of  all  the  days  of  the  year  ?  The  remem- 
brance of  the  glorious  day  when  the  heroic 
fathers  of  the  country  declared  their  indepen- 
dence would  invite  emulation.  Any  orator  of 
mediocrity  even  could  on  that  day  stir  up  the 
people  to  riot  and  bloodshed. 

The  representative  of  the  government  then 
in  power  would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be 
watchful  of  every  movement,  and  have  his  sol- 
diers in  readiness  to  quell  any  disturbance.  He 
would  be  at  his  post  of  duty  on  that  day  from 
morning  till  night,  and  feel  relieved  only  when 
the  last  hour  of  that  dangerous  day  had  passed 
and  the  last  fire-cracker  had  been  set  off. 

In  a  similar  plight  was  the  Roman  governor 
during  the  feast  of  Passover.  His  troops  were 
stationed  with  great  skill  at  the  most  important 
posts,  and  the  garrison  of  Jerusalem  re-en- 
forced :  police  in  uniform  and  detectives  in 
disguise  probably  patrolled  the  streets,  and  re- 
ported promptly  at  headquarters.  It  may  easily 
have  happened  when  Jesus  entered  Jerusalem  a 
few  days  before  the  festival  that  he  was  recog- 
nized and  cheered  by  his  rural  friends  :  it  is 
probable  that  the  rumor  spread  among  the 
people,  which  was  ready  for  a  revolt,  that  a 
Messiah  had  appeared,  and  would  give  the  sig- 
nal at  the  opportune  moment  :  it  is  more  than 
probable  that  this  rumor  reached  the  Roman 


"  The  Carpenter  s  Son."  45 

authorities  after  it  had  been  magnified  to  a 
large  extent.  The  natural  consequence  was 
that  Jesus  was  watched  with  suspicion  ;  that 
every  one  of  his  steps  was  carefully  guarded, 
and  that  just  before  the  festival  he  was  taken 
captive.  Pontius  Pilatus  risked  a  coup  de  main. 
If  Jesus  was  the  Messiah  indeed,  his  prompt 
imprisonment  and  execution  would  either  in- 
timidate the  people  and  suppress  the  outbreak 
of  a  riot  for  some  years,  or  it  would  make  the 
people  rise  in  arms  at  once,  and  hasten  the 
crisis.  Either  way  pleased  the  haughty  Roman 
much  better  than  the  suspense  in  which  he  now 
was  kept  all  the  time. 

His  calculation  was  as  correct  as  it  was 
shrewd ;  but  he  was  mistaken,  nevertheless. 
The  people  would  have  risen  in  revolt  if  the 
great  mass  had  considered  the  Galilean  the 
right  man  to  liberate  them.  Bu  .hey  expected 
a  warrior,  not  a  man  of  peaceful  disposition  : 
they  expected  a  man  of  arms,  and  not  a  the- 
orist. Neither  was  he  an  offspring  of  the  house 
of  David.  The  masses  remained  cold  and  in- 
different when  they  heard  of  his  arrest ;  and 
even  the  few  friends  of  the  unhappy  Messiah 
deserted  him  in  the  hour  of  trial. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  was  tried 
before  a  Jewish  tribunal,  for  the  right  of 
capital  punishment  had  been  usurped  by  the 
Romans  long  before ;  and  even  if  there  had 


46  Messianic  Expectations. 

been  such  a  trial,  he  must  have  been  acquitted, 
because  the  sympathies  of  his  fellow-citizens 
would  have  been  with  him.  But  he  was  not 
tried  or  convicted  by  a  regular  Jewish  court,  as, 
on  account  of  the  holy  day,  there  was  no  ses- 
sion. He  was  simply  judged  and  convicted  by 
the  Roman  authorities  on  the  charge  of  con- 
spiring against  the  Roman  government ;  and  he 
was  executed  in  great  haste  the  very  next  day, 
at  a  time  when  the  assembled  people  witnessed 
the  grand  passover  ceremonial  in  the  tem- 
ple. The  mode  of  crucifixion  was  a  Roman 
mode  of  execution  ;  and  the  inscription  Jesus 
Nazaraeus,  Rex  Judaeorum,  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
King  of  the  Jews,  which  is  said  to  have  been 
affixed  to  his  cross,  was  to  show  the  charge 
which  had  been  made  against  him. 

Now  this  is  a  point  upon  which  I  must  dwell  a 
few  moments  longer.  The  malicious  charge  that 
the  Jewish  people,  nineteen  hundred  years  ago, 
tried,  convicted,  and  executed  an  innocent  man, 
has  brought  upon  us  indescribable  misery,  and 
bears  even  to-day  its  bitter  fruit.  This  charge 
has  been  the  cause  of  wholesale  murder  ;  and 
for  nineteen  centuries  has  our  nation  been  per- 
secuted for  no  other  offence  than  that  their 
ancestors  had  crucified  Jesus.  We  were,  and 
are  still,  called  deicides,  or,  as  vulgar  language 
expresses  it,  Christ-killers.  Absurd  as  it  is  to 
hold  us  responsible  for  an  act  committed  by  our 


"  The  Carpenters  Son"  47 

ancestors  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  as  ridicu- 
lous would  it  be  for  us  to  try  to  find  an  excuse 
for  it.  Granted  that  our  ancestors  were,  in 
fact,  the  cause  of  his  premature  death,  there  is 
no  excuse  needed  ;  for  as  long  as  capital  pun- 
ishment is  not  abolished,  and  circumstantial 
evidence  is  used  to  convict  a  criminal,  or  as 
long  as  political  offences  are  punished  with 
death,  so  long  will  cases  of  judicial  murder 
never  be  avoided. 

But  the  charge  is  as  false  as  it  is  malicious. 
Scan  the  Jewish  law  from  its  beginning  to  its 
end  and  you  will  not  find  that  such  a  trial  as 
related  in  the  Gospels  could  have  taken  place. 
The  whole  form  of  the  proceeding  as  told  in 
the  Gospels  is  illegal  according  to  the  forms 
minutely  described  by  the  Jewish  law.  It 
shows  again  that  the  writers  of  the  Gospels 
were  not  Jews,  but  must  have  been  Greeks  or 
Romans,  who  were  ignorant  of  the  Jewish  law. 
And  so  it  was ;  and  with  this  fact  the  whole 
charge  collapses.  The  whole  charge  was  a  fab- 
rication of  the  early  Church.  At  the  time 
when  the  Gospels  were  written,  most  of  the 
members  of  the  Church  were  Gentiles ;  and  it 
was  at  that  time  already  evident  that  the  Gen- 
tile world,  and  not  the  limited  Jewish  circle, 
was  to  be  the  future  field  for  the  missionary 
efforts  of  the  Church. 

How  could  a  missionary  approach  a  Roman 


48  Messianic  Expectations. 

and  tell  him  that  his  people  had  put  to  death 
the  Son  of  God,  their  Saviour  ?  Such  a  state- 
ment would  have  alienated  the  whole  world 
from  them  ;  for  the  Roman  Empire  comprised 
almost  the  whole  of  the  known  world,  and 
every  individual  took  a  certain  pride  in  being  a 
Roman  citizen.  The  Jews,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  only  a  small  nation.  They  were  then  liv- 
ing in  small  communities  scattered  over  all  the 
provinces  of  the  Roman  Empire.  They  were 
furthermore  disliked  on  account  of  their  rigor- 
ous laws,  which  would  not  allow  their  amalga- 
mation with  their  neighbors.  They  were  hated 
at  the  imperial  court  on  account  of  their  obsti- 
nacy and  the  riotous  character  which  they 
showed  in  frequent  revolts.  The  charge  was 
therefore  laid  before  their  door ;  and  the 
Roman  was  told  that  the  Jews  had  killed  his 
Saviour ;  that  the  Roman  authorities  even  had 
endeavored  to  save  him  from  the  violence  of 
the  populace,  but  had  been  unsuccessful.  Such 
a  story  was  pleasing  to  the  Gentile  world,  and 
to  a  Roman  it  seemed  both  probable  and  plausi- 
ble. The  masses,  which  gained  by  it  a  pretext 
for  venting  their  anger  on  a  class  which  they 
hated,  did  not  investigate  the  matter  any  fur- 
ther ;  and  thus  the  unfounded  and  malicious 
charge,  was  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation  to  this  very  day.  Is  it  not  high 
time  that  our  liberal  age  and  our  enlightened 


"  The  Carpenter s  Son"  49 

fellow-citizens  should  finally  drop  that  malicious 
charge,  which,  even  if  it  were  not  a  fabrication, 
could  not  reflect  upon  us  ?  Is  it  not  high  time 
that  bigotry  and  fanaticism  should  be  silenced, 
and  that  the  rising  generations  should  be  in- 
structed to  take  those  legends  for  what  they  are 
worth?  It  is  not  the  Jew  who  is  disgraced 
when  the  epithet  of  deicide  or  Christ-killer  is 
hurled  at  him  :  it  is  the  one  who  uses  it ;  be- 
cause this  very  expression  gives  unmistakable 
evidence,  not  only  of  his  bigotry,  his  intoler- 
ance, and  of  his  bad  breeding,  but  of  his  igno- 
rance ;  and,  not  for  our  own  sake,  but  for  his 
sake,  I  stand  here  and  appeal  to  you  to  spread 
enlightenment  wherever  you  can  in  regard  to 
such  an  important  matter. 


IV. 

JUDAISM    THE    MOTHER,   AND    CHRISTIANITY 
THE   DAUGHTER. 

'HE  time  when  Christianity  was  born  was 
as  peculiar  and  as  remarkable  in  regard 
to  religious  matters  as  is  perhaps  our  own 
present  age.  Then,  as  to-day,  the  edu- 
cated classes,  the  pioneers  of  civilization,  were 
ready  for  a  change  of  front.  Old  ideas  had  out- 
lived their  usefulness,  and  the  new  ones  had 
not  yet  developed  far  enough  to  take  their 
places.  The  minds  of  the  best  and  most  con- 
scientious men  were  therefore  kept  in  a  constant 
tension.  The  old  pagan  gods  had  lost  their 
reputation,  and  the  world  was  yearning  for  a 
God  who  should  fill  the  void  in  the  human 
heart.  Though  the  most  magnificent  temples 
were  erected  at  that  period,  there  was  an  utter 
lack  of  true  religious  sentiment,  and  hypocrisy 
ran  high.  The  splendor  of  the  temples  and  the 
very  attractions  which  the  priests  were  com- 
pelled to  offer,  were  unmistakable  evidence  that 
rites  and  ceremonies  had  lost  their  meaning, 
and  with  it  their  influence  upon  the  worshipper. 
At  that  time,  the  eye  of  the  pagan  world  in- 
5° 


Mother  and  Daughter.  5 1 

stinctively  turned  toward  the  Jews.  Their  the- 
ology was  pure,  their  doctrines  founded  upon 
philosophy,  their  laws  just  and  comprehensive, 
their  rites  elevating  and  soul-inspiring,  their 
ethics  unsurpassed.  Their  intercourse  with 
Greeks  and  Romans  had  introduced  them  to 
the  world.  They  had  multiplied,  and  were  to 
be  found  everywhere.  There  were  as  that  time 
more  Israelites  outside  of  Palestine  than  within. 
Large  colonies  of  Jews  were  to  be  found  in 
Persia  and  along  the  whole  coast  of  Asia  Minor: 
they  had  settlements  in  Greece,  in  Spain,  in 
Gaul,  in  Italy,  and  especially  in  Rome.  In 
Egypt  they  were  almost  the  masters.  They 
were  the  leading  statesmen :  they  commanded 
the  armies  :  they  were  the  magnates  of  com- 
merce and  the  owners  of  factories.  In  Leon- 
topolts  they  owned  a  temple  which  rivalled  in 
beauty  and  elegance  that  of  Jerusalem.  In 
Alexandria  they  had  a  number  of  synagogues, 
the  most  prominent  of  which  is  reported  to  have 
been  of  such  dimensions  that  the  loudest  voice 
could  not  be  heard  from  end  to  end,  and  that 
therefore  a  flag  was  waved  from  an  elevated 
stand  whenever  the  congregation  was  requested 
to  rise  and  to  join  in  the  Amen.  But  what  is 
of  still  greater  importance,  the  Pentateuch  had 
been  translated  into  the  Greek  language.  The 
Septuaginta,  as  this  translation  was  called,  had 
become  a  standard  work ;  and  all  men  of  intelli- 


52  Messianic  Expectations. 

gence  and  learning  had  become  familiar  with  it. 
No  wonder,  therefore,  that  Gentiles  in  large 
numbers  embraced  Judaism.  From  the  interior 
of  Asia  a  princess  came  with  all  her  family  to 
be  initiated  into  the  Jewish  religion. 

It  is  said,  and  it  is  well  said,  that  every  man 
has  once  in  his  life  an  opportune  moment  when 
he  can  make  his  fortune,  but  that  only  very  few 
take  hold  of  it,  while  the  rest  let  it  slip  from 
their  grasp.  The  same  holds  good  for  nations. 
That  very  period  was  the  time  when  Judaism 
could  have  conquered  the  world.  It  would  be 
an  idle  play  of  imagination  for  us  to  conjecture 
what  our  present  condition  would  have  been  if 
our  ancestors  had  made  proper  and  prompt  use 
of  their  opportunity.  Alas,  they  did  not.  Per- 
haps an  all-wise  Providence  had  destined  it  for 
good  reasons  that  they  should  not.  There 
were  two  obstacles  which  then  hindered  the 
spreading  of  Judaism.  In  the  first  place,  its 
customs  were  too  rigorous.  The  Gentiles, 
though  they  acknowledged  the  correctness  of 
Jewish  theology  and  the  purity  of  its  ethics, 
were  unwilling  to  submit  to  the  Abrahamitic 
rite,  to  the  table  laws,  and  to  the  minute  pre- 
scriptions concerning  cleanliness.  Judaism,  on 
its  part,  was  not  ready  to  compromise  with  them, 
because,  and  this  was  the  second  obstacle,  it 
was  too  aristocratic.  Its  doctrines  maintained 
that  the  Israelites  were  a  people  chosen  by  God ; 


Mother  and  Daughter.  5  3 

that  the  much  admired  laws  were  given  to  them 
for  their  own  welfare ;  and  that  it  was  obligatory 
for  them  to  guard,  but  not  to  spread  them. 
Judaism,  of  course,  would  not  reject  the  stranger 
who  would  knock  at  its  doors ;  it  would  accept 
him  cheerfully,  provided  he  would  take  upon 
himself  the  whole  burden  of  the  law  without 
any  haggling ;  but  it  would  not  proselyte  ;  it 
would  not  go  and  coax  or  force  the  stranger  to 
come  in.  If  these  two  obstacles  could  have 
been  removed,  the  mastery  of  the  world  would 
have  fallen  as  a  consequence  into  the  lap  of 
Judaism. 

There  was  one  man  living  at  that  time  who 
saw  the  golden  apple  hanging  within  such  easy 
reach  ;  he  stretched  forth  his  arm  and  broke  it, 
but,  alas,  not  for  his  own  nation.  It  was  Saul 
of  Tarsus,  better  known  as  Paul.  To  him  owes 
Christianity  its  life. 

Paul  was  no  rabbi.  He  was  no  scholar 
whatsoever,  nor  was  he  versed  in  Jewish 
literature.  He  knew  the  Bible  in  its  Greek 
version  only ;  he  would  misquote,  in  his  let- 
ters to  the  Corinthians,  a  passage  in  Isaiah 
as  occurring  in  the  Pentateuch  ;  but  for  all 
his  ignorance  in  letters,  he  was  zealous  and 
practical. 

Observing  that  Judaism  could  not  and  that 
it  would  not  allow  one  letter  of  the  law  to 
be  changed,  he  embraced  with  eagerness  the 


54  Messianic  Expectations. 

legends  of  the  crucified  Jesus,  which  must  have 
reached  him  in  an  exaggerated  form  ;  and,  with- 
out having  ever  known  him,  he  made  him  the 
corner-stone  of  the  building  which  he  proposed 
to  erect.  There  was  an  old  saying  that  the 
Messiah  would  do  away  with  the  law,  as  he 
would  naturally  usurp  the  power  of  issuing  new 
orders.  Paul  made  use  of  it,  and  accepted 
Jesus  as  the  Messiah,  no  matter  whether  he 
had  fulfilled  what  was  expected  of  a  Messiah  or 
not.  It  was  sufficient  for  him  that  a  Messiah 
had  appeared ;  for  this  gave  him  a  handle  to 
change  or  to  abolish  as  much  of  the  law  as  he, 
Paul,  saw  fit.  With  one  stroke  of  the  pen,  as 
we  should  say,  he  removed  one  of  the  obstacles : 
he  admitted  Gentiles  into  Judaism  without 
the  performance  of  the  Abrahamitic  rite,  and 
allowed  them  to  eat  whatever  they  pleased. 
Denounced  by  his  Jewish  brethren  as  a  law- 
breaker, and  distrusted  even  by  the  personal 
friends  of  the  unfortunate  Galilean,  who  were 
shocked  to  hear  the  words  of  their  master  in- 
terpreted by  a  stranger  in  such  a  peculiar  way, 
Paul  sought  and  found  his  friends  among  Gen- 
tiles. Supplying  a  long-felt  want,  his  career 
became  a  success  in  spite  of  all  the  obstacles 
which  beset  his  way.  He  was  the  first  mis- 
sionary whom  the  world  has  seen.  Christian 
congregations  grew  up  under  the  very  print 
which  his  foot  left  upon  the  ground. 


Mother  and  Daughter.  5  5 

With  him  the  Messianic  idea,  formerly  local, 
took  a  universal  turn.  The  Messiah  now  ceased 
to  be  an  anointed  king,  expected  to  remove  the 
political  misery  of  the  Jewish  nation.  He  grew 
into  a  divine  messenger,  a  son  of  God,  sent 
from  heaven  to  earth  to  save  all  mankind  from 
the  effect  of  sin.  Though  having  been  put  to 
death,  he  would  soon  return,  and  hold  stern 
judgment  over  the  world.  His  friends  would 
be  royally  rewarded,  his  enemies  unmercifully 
punished.  Thus  the  Messianic  idea  became  a 
necessity  for  the  Paulinian  Church.  Without 
it,  it  lacked  all  authority  for  the  inroads  made 
upon  the  law,  the  grandeur  of  which  still  re- 
mained the  centre  of  attraction  to  the  pagan 
world. 

It  would  take  years  should  I  attempt  to  trace 
in  weekly  lectures  the  rise  and  growth  of  Chris- 
tianity. May  it  suffice  that  I  show  to  you  its 
source,  and  that  I  establish  the  fact  that  it  was 
built  by  Paul  from  sheer  necessity,  upon  a  mis- 
taken interpretation  of  the  Messianic  idea,  with 
which  it  stands  and  falls. 

In  the  meantime,  the  Jews  witnessed  the  ap- 
pearance of  another  Messiah.  His  name  was 
Theudas.  He  shared  the  fate  of  Jesus.  Fadus, 
the  Roman  governor,  caught  him  and  his  band, 
and  beheaded  him.  Pilate  did  exactly  the  same 
which  Fadus  did  a  few  years  later  ;  but  nobody 
would  claim  to-day  that  the  Jews  tried  and  sen- 


56  Messianic  Expectations. 

tenced  Theudas :  nobody  would  hold  them 
responsible  for  his  death.  Theudas,  however, 
must  have  gamed  more  notoriety  than  Jesus 
ever  did  at  his  time  ;  for  Josephus  granted  him 
a  considerable  space  in  his  history. 

When  finally  the  cup  of  misery  was  full  to 
the  brim,  and  no  help  came  from  outside,  the 
people  arose  in  arms.  A  short  but  fierce  strug- 
gle followed.  Titus  and  his  legions  stormed 
Jerusalem,  laid  the  temple  in  ashes ;  and  with 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  Israel  was  stricken 
forever  from  the  list  of  nations. 

The  seed  planted  by  Paul  had  in  the  mean- 
time grown  up,  and  kept  on  growing.  Christi- 
anity spread  from  day  to  day ;  and  the  daughter 
soon  severed  all  connections  with  her  mother. 
She  went  her  own  way  ;  for  she  had  a  mission 
of  her  own  to  fulfil ;  a  mission  which  neither 
Judaism  nor  Hellenism  could  have  fulfilled  with 
success  :  she  had  to  civilize  a  world  of  barba- 
rians. Judaism  would  have  failed  on  account 
of  its  rigor :  Hellenism,  on  account  of  its  self- 
ishness. Greek  philosophy  cared  little  for  the 
welfare  of  mankind  as  a  species  :  its  attempts 
were  directed  toward  individual  happiness.  But 
it  forgot  that  individual  happiness  and  national 
happiness  stand  in  a  mutual  relation  to  each 
other,  and  that  the  one  is  impossible  without 
the  other.  Whenever  it  failed  to  secure  indi- 
vidual happiness,  it  was  at  a  loss  to  account  for 


Mother  and  Daughter.  57 

it,  and  advised  to  escape  the  miseries  of  life  by 
suicide.  This  was  its  last  and  only  remedy. 
Nature,  however,  abhors  destruction  :  neither 
the  Epicurean  nor  the  Stoic  schools  could  ever 
win  the  favor  of  the  masses.  A  Greek  philoso- 
pher would  have  ridiculed  it  as  absurd  to  stoop 
down  to  a  slave  or  a  barbarian,  in  order  to  edu- 
cate him  to  higher  and  better  principles.  Not  so 
Christianity.  From  her  mother  she  had  inher- 
ited the  principles  of  freedom  and  equality  ;  the 
principle  of  one  God  and  one  human  brother- 
hood. From  her  she  had  learned  the  maxim, 
Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  Equipped  with 
these  gems  from  her  mother's  treasury,  adorned 
with  the  ten  sparkling  diamonds  of  the  Sinaitic 
law,  she  entered  upon  her  path.  What  we 
should  call  to  elevate  or  civilize  was  called  by 
her  to  save  ;  and  to  save  the  world  she  was 
bound.  Let  us  give  honor  where  honor  is  due. 
With  unexcelled  heroism,  the  disciple  of  the 
early  Church  would  seek  strange  countries, 
savage  nations,  always  carrying  his  life  in  his 
hands.  He  would  fearlessly  enter  the  cabin  of 
barbarians,  suffer  their  scorn,  their  anger,  even 
death  from  their  hands.  He  would  never  flinch 
nor  shirk  his  duty.  And  such  heroism  over- 
awed the  barbarian  :  he  submitted,  and  bowed 
before  the  new  God. 

There  is  a  steel  engraving,  to  be  found  in  al- 
most every  large  picture  store,  representing  the 


58  Messianic  Expectations. 

following  scene  :  Two  savage-looking  gladiators 
are  seen  fighting  in  the  Circus  Maximus  of 
Rome,  for  the  amusement  of  the  masses.  One 
has  succeeded  in  throwing  the  net  over  his 
opponent,  and  in  forcing  him  to  the  ground. 
His  eyes  beam  with  passion  :  he  craves  the 
blood  of  his  victim.  Uplifted  in  his  sinewy 
arm,  he  holds  the  trident,  a  fearful  weapon, 
wherewith  to  deal  the  deadly  blow  ;  when,  lo 
and  behold  !  a  disciple  of  the  early  Church  fear- 
lessly places  himself  between  the  victor  and  his 
victim,  with  the  cry,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill !  "  I 
do  not  know  whether  it  is  the  skill  of  the  artist 
or  the  subject  chosen  by  him  which  produces 
the  effect ;  but  I  can  never  pass  this  picture 
without  emotion.  Though  the  artist  only  imag- 
ined that  scene,  he  took  it,  nevertheless,  from 
life.  Such  scenes  have  occurred,  not  once,  but 
a  thousand  times,  until  the  brute  in  man  was 
tamed,  and  the  barbarian  had  learned,  not  only 
the  lesson,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  but  the  still 
greater  one,  "  Love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 

Christianity  at  the  same  time  was  accommo- 
dating itself  to  the  pagan  world.  It  did  not 
ask  for  more  than  it  could  possibly  get  at  a 
time.  It  granted  indulgences,  provided  some  of 
its  lessons  were  accepted  in  exchange ;  and 
thus,  step  by  step,  it  went  further  and  further, 
until  it  had  subdued  the  world;  until  it  had 
civilized  Germans,  Goths,  Celts,  Huns,  Mon 


Mother  and  Daughter.  59 

gols,  and  all ;  until  princes  would  yield  to  the 
frown  of  a  bishop  and  warriors  sheathe  or  un- 
sheathe their  swords  at  the  command  of  the 
ecclesiastical  head.  Every  unprejudiced  man 
must  acknowledge  it,  and  I  acknowledge  it  with 
pleasure,  that  Christianity  has  performed  some 
remarkable  deeds.  It  has  abolished  slavery,  it 
has  established  monogamy,  it  has  mitigated 
the  evils  of  war,  and  by  all  means  raised  the 
standard  of  civilization. 

But  there  is  nothing  obtained  in  this  world 
without  compensation.  What  is  won  on  the 
one  side  is  generally  lost  on  the  other.  Chris- 
tianity had  stooped  down  to  the  pagan  world  to 
save  it,  it  had  yielded  to  its  whims ;  but  in  its 
embraces  it  had  lost  its  identity,  and  had  become 
paganized  in  its  turn.  Step  by  step,  it  was 
dragged,  let  me  say  involuntarily,  from  its  path. 
The  Messiah  was  changed  into  a  son  of  God, 
and  the  son  soon  unthroned  the  father.  A 
mysterious  trinity  replaced  monotheism  :  super- 
stitious idolatry  raised  again  its  head.  Upon 
the  pedestals  from  which  the  early  Church  had 
thrown  the  jolly  crowd  of  Greek  gods  and  god- 
desses, the  later  Church  erected  the  images  of 
their  saints.  A  Saint  Martin  took  the  place  of 
Mars,  the  god  of  war ;  a  Madonna,  the  place  of 
a  Minerva  ;  a  Magdalene,  the  place  of  a  Venus. 
The  churches  were  again  desecrated  into  won- 
der-working institutions :  the  Christian  priest 


60  Messianic  Expectations. 

assumed  the  splendor  of  his  predecessor,  and 
dressed  in  gorgeous  style :  the  bishop  of  Rome 
became  the  heir  of  the  late  Pontifex  Maximus. 
Reason  was  banished,  and  unbridled  imagina- 
tion was  permitted  to  run  riot.  Paganism,  it 
is  true,  had  been  Christianized ;  but  during  the 
process  Christianity  had  become  paganized. 
The  world  would  surely  have  fallen  back  into 
its  former  barbarism,  as  the  dreary  Middle  Ages 
indicated,  if  it  had  not  been  for  Judaism.  Yes, 
indeed :  if  it  had  not  been  for  Judaism ;  and 
this  is  a  fact  which  only  few  seem  to  know. 
Though  bleeding  from  many  a  wound,  though 
despised  and  maltreated  by  her  haughty  daugh- 
ter, Judaism  the  mother  still  lived ;  and  as  long 
as  she  lived,  she  was  a  living  protest  against 
the  frivolous  conduct  of  her  daughter.  Her 
rigor,  which  had  made  her  lose  the  command 
over  a  world,  had  protected  her,  on  the  other 
hand,  from  the  dangerous  embraces  of  paganism. 
She  had  preserved  the  purity  of  her  doctrines, 
and  still  clung  to  reason  in  preference  to  blind 
belief. 

At  this  juncture,  it  appears  necessary  to 
me  to  say  a  few  words  about  belief,  now  we 
hear  so  much  about  believers  and  unbelievers, 
or  infidels.  Belief  is  always  resorted  to  to 
offset  reason ;  and  a  great  many  maintain  that 
religion  cannot  be  severed  from  belief.  There 
are  perhaps  many  Israelites  who  do  not  know 


Mother  and  Daughter.  6 1 

it,  and  therefore  will  be  scared  when  I  tell  them 
that  Judaism  is  not  built  upon  belief,  but  that 
it  stands  upon  the  firm  rock  of  reason.  You 
will  never  find  in  Jewish  literature  the  com- 
mand, "Thou  shalt  believe."  This  word  was 
introduced  into  the  religious  vocabulary  by 
Christianity.  The  mere  belief  in  the  Saviour 
was  to  save  from  eternal  damnation.  Standing 
upon  a  basis  which  could  not  withstand  the 
pressure  of  reason,  it  was  to  be  supported  by 
beliefs.  To  believe  did  not  mean  to  accept  a 
statement  as  true  because  it  could  reasonably 
be  expected  to  be  true.  No  :  to  believe  meant 
to  accept  a  statement  as  true,  although  reason 
revolted  against  it.  Only  then  the  saving 
qualities  of  belief  would  come  into  play.  There 
was,  for  instance,  no  merit  in  the  belief  in  a 
God  whose  existence,  though  not  perceivable 
by  human  senses,  still  stands  to  reason  ;  but  the 
belief  that  three  are  one  and  one  three,  a 
doctrine  against  which  reason  revolts,  such  a 
belief  was  soul-saving  and  meritorious.  Let  me 
give  you  another  example.  To  believe  that  the 
sacred  Scriptures  were  written  in  the  same  way 
as  all  other  books,  which  they  may  surpass  in 
diction  and  beauty,  by  human  writers  inspired 
for  their  work,  or  to  believe  that  the  soul  of 
every  writer,  inventor,  or  discoverer,  stands  in 
a  certain  relation  to  the  source  from  which  all 
talent  and  genius  spring  and  our  spirits  flow, 


62  Messianic  Expectations. 

such  a  belief,  which  stands  to  reason,  was  of  no 
merit :  it  was,  and  is  still,  called  unbelief.  But 
to  believe  that  God  selected  a  certain  man,  and 
dictated  him,  word  for  word,  an  oration  which 
he  was  to  deliver,  or  a  narrative  which  he  was 
to  write,  assuming  the  responsible  editorship 
himself,  and  using  the  man  only  as  an  amanu- 
ensis, such  a  belief,  against  which  reason  rea- 
sonably rebels,  such  a  belief  is  still  to-day 
demanded.  The  passage  in  which  a  Church 
Father  says,  Credo,  quia  absurdnm  est,  "  I 
believe,  because  it  is  absurd,"  was  by  no  means 
intended  as  a  sarcasm  :  it  was  the  only  stand- 
point of  the  Church.  Whatever  is  reasonable 
needs  not  to  be  believed  ;  it  convinces  ;  and 
the  great  God  who  has  granted  us  the  heavenly 
light  of  reason  can  not,  does  not,  want  us  to 
exchange  it  for  the  dim  lamp  of  blind  belief. 
A  religion  which  cannot  stand  the  test  of 
reason  cannot  endure  forever  :  belief  is  a  weak 
prop  only,  which  sooner  or  later  must  break. 

Christianity,  because  it  could  never  prove  its 
premises,  was  forced  to  cling  to  belief.  Juda- 
ism, on  the  contrary,  was  not  and  is  not  under 
such  a  pressure.  It  accepts  facts  which  have 
occurred  in  the  past  as  true,  as  long  as  they  are 
not  unreasonable  or  proven  to  be  unhistorical 
by  new  developments  ;  and  no  merit  is  claimed 
for  it  nor  any  reward  expected  for  it.  This 
grants  us  full  liberty  of  conscience. 


Mother  and  Daughter,  63 

At  every  critical  period  in  the  development 
of  the  Christian  Church,  Judaism,  the  mother, 
raised  her  voice  of  warning,  and  this  voice  was 
not  to  be  silenced.  Neither  the  sword  of  per- 
secution nor  the  pyre  and  torture  of  the  inquisi- 
tion, not  even  ridicule,  could  chase  away  the 
maternal  ghost,  which  would  step  between  the 
daughter  and  her  seducer  at  the  critical  mo- 
ment. And  thus  the  tide  turned.  Slowly  but 
surely  the  daughter  retraced  her  steps.  Protes- 
tantism was  the  first  step  toward  home.  Juda- 
ism had  so  long  protested  against  image-worship 
that  the  very  best  Christians  began  to  listen, 
then  to  think :  finally  to  join  in  the  protest. 
Christian  scholars  secretly  visited  in  disguise 
the  learned  men  of  Judah.  They  visited  their 
miserable  abodes,  to  be  introduced  by  them  to 
the  mysteries  of  the  Talmud,  and  to  read  with 
them  the  Bible  in  the  original.*  Here  they 
drank  in  full  draughts  from  the  waters  of 
life ;  and  when  Luther  nailed  his  theses  to 
the  church  door  of  Wittenberg,  his  hammer 
sounded  the  death-knell  to  idolatry.  Four 
hundred  years  of  retracing  her  steps  are  not 
a  long  time  in  comparison  with  the  fifteen  hun- 
dred years  during  which  the  Church  was  built ; 
and  considerable  work  has  been  done  already 
We  have  arrived  at  that  stage  where  the  dogma 
of  a  trinity  has  been  abandoned,  and  a  Unitarian 
platform  is  erected  in  its  place.  Jesus  of  Naza- 

*  Reuchlin,  Sebastian  Munster,  Egidio  de  Viterbo,  and  others. 


64  Messianic  Expectations. 

reth,  five  hundred  years  ago  the  principal  and 
foremost  feature  of  the  trinity,  is  now  to  our 
enlightened  Unitarian  friends  not  more  than 
the  ideal  of  a  man  ;  and  I  doubt  whether  the 
remaining  eleven  hundred  will  be  consumed  be- 
fore he  will  not  be  more  and  not  less  than  the 
carpenter's  son.  Hereditary  sin,  atonement 
through  Christ,  heaven  and  purgatory,  eternal 
bliss  and  eternal  damnation,  all  these  supersti- 
tious doctrines  have  already  fallen  ;  and  the  sun 
of  reason  breaks  through  the  clouds,  and  sheds 
its  bright  rays  to-day  over  a  world  happier  and 
better  than  ever  before. 

Has  Judaism  remained  unchanged  during  all 
these  centuries  ?  In  its  principles,  yes  ;  in  its 
forms,  no.  The  principle  that  there  is  but  one 
God,  and  none  besides  him,  and  the  ten  com- 
mandments, which  are  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  it,  have  remained  unchanged,  and 
will  remain  unchanged  forever,  until  the  whole 
human  race  shall  have  adopted  them.  They 
have  already  adopted  them  in  theory,  but  not 
yet  in  practice.  But  in  regard  to  forms  we 
have  changed.  Thank  God,  we  have  advanced. 
The  Jew  of  to-day  is  no  longer  the  Jew  of  nine- 
teen hundred  years  ago.  We  are  no  mummies  : 
we  are  alive  and  wide  awake  to  the  demands  of 
our  time.  We  have  learned  a  good  many 
things :  and  I  praise  God  for  it  that  we  have 
also  forgotten  a  good  many.  The  advancing 


Mother  ana  Daughter.  65 

Israelite  and  the  advanced,  or,  as  I  shall  name 
him  more  properly,  the  returning,  Christian 
stand  to-day  almost  upon  the  same  level. 
There  are  only  two  slight  difficulties  to  be 
overcome  ;  one  on  the  part  of  our  Unitarian 
friends,  the  other  on  both  sides.  The  first  is 
that  our  friends  must  give  up  the  ideal  embel- 
lishments with  which  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  glo- 
rified, and  reduce  him  to  that  place  which  he 
may  have  really  filled.  I  know  it :  it  will  take 
some  time  before  they  shall  overcome  this  diffi- 
culty ;  for  it  is  not  so  easy  as  you  may  think 
to  give  up  ideals  to  which  you  have  become 
attached  from  your  earliest  childhood ;  nor 
must  we  forget  that  then  they  would  lose  their 
claim  to  the  Christian  name,  so  highly  cher- 
ished by  them.  The  other  difficulty  to  be  over- 
come by  both  sides  is  race  prejudice.  With 
the  spread  of  intelligence,  with  a  better  under- 
standing between  both  races,  and  with  good 
will  on  both  sides,  I  am  almost  certain  that  in 
course  of  time  this  difficulty  too  will  be  removed. 
Mother  and  daughter,  who  even  then  will 
touch  one  another  with  the  tips  of  their  fingers 
only,  will  feel  the  magnetic  current  of  love  pass 
through  their  bodies.  Nearer  and  nearer  they 
will  be  drawn  to  each  other,  until  at  last,  after 
a  thousand  years,  they  will  be  reunited  in  one 
loving  embrace. 


V. 

A  GENUINE  MESSIAH. 

EN  and  events  are  seldom  v/eighed  by 
us  in  the  scales  of  justice.  It  is  the 
successful  who  generally  carries  off  the 
admiration  and  appreciation  of  the  world ;  and 
the  popular  adage  says  therefore  correctly, 
Nothing  succeeds  like  success.  Success,  how- 
ever, is  a  product  composed  of  two  factors  ;  the 
one  of  which  is  our  own  ability  and  ambition, 
the  other  an  indescribable  something,  commonly 
called  luck.  The  one  is  within  ourselves,  the 
other  outside  of  us.  We  have  full  control  over 
the  first  one,  but  no  command  whatsoever  over 
the  second.  Nor  are  these  two  factors  equal  in 
value.  The  product  success  is  obtained  in  some 
cases  by  the  multiplication  of  great  ability  with 
a  small  quantity  of  luck  ;  in  others,  by  the  mul- 
tiplication of  little  ability  with  a  great  amount 
of  luck.  No  success  whatsoever  can  be  reached 
if  one  of  these  two  factors  is  lacking.  The  most 
talented,  the  most  enthusiastic,  will  fail  in  his 
enterprise  if  luck  does  not  favor  him  ;  and  the 
choicest  luck  cannot  tower  up  to  the  goal  of 
66 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  67 

success    if     not     supported    by    some    intelli- 
gence. 

But,  sad  as  the  fact  is,  mankind  never  goes 
behind  the  returns.  It  never  takes  the  time  to 
examine  the  factors :  it  looks  at  the  product 
only.  If  a  man  is  successful,  it  bows  before  him 
in  admiration  :  if  his  undertaking  has  been 
unsuccessful,  it  turns  from  him  with  disgust ;  at 
best  with  pity.  A  people  arising  to  break  the 
fetters  which  either  a  foreign  nation  or  the  party 
in  power  has  tied  around  its  limbs  has  always 
been  a  grand  sight  ;  and  the  attention  of  the 
world  has  always  been  directed  toward  the  place 
where  such  an  uprising  has  occurred ;  but  it  has 
always  been  the  final  success  which  has  influ- 
enced the  verdict.  Whenever  a  nation  has  suc- 
ceeded in  liberating  itself,  the  preceding  struggle 
has  been  called  a  revolution  :  if  it  has  failed  in 
its  enterprise,  it  has  been  called  a  rebellion.  In 
the  first  case,  the  national  leaders  have  been 
worshipped  as  heroes,  and  their  praises  have 
been  sung  by  the  poets  of  their  time  ;  in  the 
other,  they  have  been  stigmatized  as  traitors,  as 
ringleaders,  as  rebels ;  and  though  they  may 
have  sealed  their  love  for  their  country  with 
their  blood,  either  gloriously  on  the  battle-field, 
or  ignominiously  upon  the  scaffold,  not  a  word 
has  been  said  in  their  favor :  not  a  pen  has  been 
stirred  to  transmit  their  name  to  posterity.  At 
best,  they  have  been  defended;  at  best,  some 


68  Messianic  Expectations. 

friendly  hand  has  attempted  to  wipe  away  the 
stains  with  which  their  misfortune  or  ill  luck 
has  bespattered  them. 

My  argument  will  appear  with  greater  distinct- 
ness by  the  following  comparison.  Supposing 
the  United  States  of  America  had  been  unsuc- 
cessful in  their  struggle  against  Great  Britain, 
do  you  think  we  should  look  at  the  event  as  we 
do  now  ?  You  may  rest  assured  that  the  glorious 
time  of  a  hundred  years  ago  would  be  branded 
to-day  as  a  time  of  rebellion ;  that  the  children  at 
school  would  be  instructed  to  detest  the  rebels, 
Washington  and  Franklin,  and  to  glory  in  the 
patriotism  of  Arnold.  They  would  not  be  told 
to  memorize  Longfellow's  beautiful  poem  of  the 
midnight  ride  of  Paul  Revere ;  and  "  God  save 
the  Queen  "  would  fill  the  place  of  the  "  Star- 
spangled  Banner "  in  the  singing-books  of  our 
schools.  How  many  of  us  would  take  the  trouble 
to  examine  the  motives,  the  heroism,  and  the 
enthusiasm,  of  the  noble  men  of  '76  ?  Few ; 
for  we  all  should  silently  acquiesce  in  the  verdict 
of  the  world  ;  or,  as  you  may  call  it,  in  the  ver- 
dict of  history,  which,  after  all,  would  have  been 
influenced,  not  by  the  merit,  but  by  the  success 
of  the  cause. 

Will  humanity  ever  outgrow  such  injustice  ? 
I  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  historians 
of  the  future  will  adopt  a  more  just  measurement 
of  men  and  events ;  that  they  will  overhaul  the 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  69 

whole  building  which  history  so  far  has  erected, 
and  that  they  will  mete  out  justice  unbiassed  by 
the  success  with  which  an  event  had  been  ac- 
companied ;  and  I  should  advise  you,  my  friends, 
whenever  you  go  into  historical  research,  to 
leave  a  wide  margin  in  favor  of  the  unsuccessful 
party. 

I  shall  now  acquaint  you  with  such  a  party, 
and  with  a  man  who,  if  he  had  been  successful, 
would  have  filled  the  world  with  his  renown. 
He  possessed  the  one  factor  of  success,  genius, 
talent,  enthusiasm ;  but,  alas,  he  lacked  the 
other.  Luck  went  against  him.  I  shall  conjure 
up  before  you  the  spirit  of  a  man  whom  nobody 
to-day  seems  to  know,  but  who,  nevertheless, 
at  his  time  had  made  a  Roman  emperor  tremble 
upon  his  throne ;  whose  very  name  spread 
terror  upon  Roman  soil  similar  to  that  which, 
hundreds  of  years  before,  the  name  of  Brennus 
and  Hannibal  had  caused.  Would  that  I  could 
show  you  the  last  Jewish  warrior  in  his  full 
glory  !  Would  that  I  could  sing  in  loud  strains 
the  praise  of  the  last  Jewish  hero,  who,  if  ever 
a  man  has  deserved  the  title  Messiah,  was 
worthy  of  it !  If  ever  Messianic  expectations 
have  been  realized,  they  were  realized  in  Bar 
Kochba.  He  was,  barring  anointment,  a  Mes- 
siah who  tallied,  every  inch  of  him,  with  the 
hopes  which  his  nation  harbored  concerning  such 
a  man. 


70  Messianic  Expectations. 

Th.e  Jewish  nation  has  been  and  is  still  blamed 
for  rejecting  Jesus  of  Nazareth  as  a  Messiah. 
They  have  been  called  a  stubborn  people,  who 
would  always  maltreat  its  benefactors  and  best 
friends.  False,  thrice  false!  The  Jews  were, 
as  they  are  still,  wide-awake,  and  knew  well  how 
to  distinguish  a  chimera  from  a  reality.  While 
they  remained  indifferent  to  idealistic  dreamers, 
as  Jesus  and  Theudas  may  have  been,  they  arose 
as  one  man  when  the  person  appeared  who  had 
all  the  qualifications  of  a  Messiah.  They  placed 
at  Bar  Kochba's  disposal  an  army  of  not  less 
than  half  a  million  of  well-equipped  soldiers. 
They  heeded  strictly  his  orders.  There  was 
not  the  least  discord  in  their  ranks  ;  and  during 
five  years  more  than  two  millions  of  Jews  sacri- 
ficed their  lives  for  him  and  his  cause.  Does 
such  devotion  indicate  blindness  or  stubborn- 
ness ?  Alas !  Bar  Kochba  was  not  successful : 
his  cause  did  not  triumph.  The  hero  was  there- 
fore degraded  to  a  rebel,  and  the  last  glorious 
struggle  of  our  nation  was  stigmatized  as  a 
rebellion. 

Jerusalem  had  fallen  in  the  year  70  of  the 
new  era,  and  Judea  had  been  made  a  Roman 
province.  Years  of  misery  followed,  and  the 
hope  that  finally  a  Messiah  must  appear  to  re- 
store their  former  independence  grew  stronger 
every  day.  Even  the  early  Christians  believed 
that  the  time  was  near  when  their  Messiah  would 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  71 

return.  Sixty  years  had  passed  since ;  and  as 
the  first  exile  had  lasted  only  seventy  years,  the 
conclusion  was  near  at  hand  that  again,  after 
seventy  years,  a  restoration  would  take  place. 

An  excellent  proof  that  the  hope  in  the  advent 
of  a  Messiah  was  rooted  in  political  and  not  in 
religious  ground,  that  the  Jews  did  not  expect  a 
supernatural  Messiah,  but  simply  a  man  who 
would  be  their  leader  in  the  struggle  for  liberty, 
is  that  they  prepared  for  the  emergency.  They 
were  practical  enough  to  observe  that  arms,  am- 
munition, drilled  men,  and  especially  money, 
must  be  prepared  and  in  readiness,  so  that  the 
Messiah  should  have  the  sinews  of  war  at  his 
command.  They  did  by  no  means  believe  that 
he  was  to  work  wonders,  and  do  the  fighting  all 
by  himself.  They  expected  in  him  a  leader,  and 
nothing  else. 

The  acknowledged  head  of  the  Jewish  com- 
munity at  that  time  was  Rabbi  Akiba,  whom  I 
cannot  help  mentioning,  as  he  played  a  princi- 
pal part  in  the  tragedy  of  the  Bar  Kochbean 
war.  His  history  is  wonderful,  and  reads  like 
a  novel.  Up  to  his  fortieth  year,  he  is  said  to 
have  been  ignorant  of  letters,  unable  to  read 
or  write.  His  occupation  was  that  of  a  porter 
in  the  house  of  Calba  Sabua,  the  Vanderbilt  of 
his  time.  At  this  advanced  age,  he  fell  in  love 
with  Rachel,  his  master's  daughter.  His  affec- 
tion was  returned ;  but  as  Rachel  well  knew 


72  Messianic  Expectations. 

that  her  proud  father  would  never  consent  to 
her  marriage  with  a  porter,  and  elopements 
were  not  fashionable  at  that  time,  she  advised 
him,  strange  to  say,  to  study  law.  Akiba 
heeded  her  advice,  and  began  at  the  bottom 
of  the  ladder.  He  entered  a  primary  school. 
During  the  many  years  of  his  studies,  Rachel 
is  said  to  have  faithfully  preserved  her  love  for 
him,  although  her  father,  hearing  of  it,  disowned 
her.  She  is  said  to  have  lived  in  such  misery 
that  once  she  was  compelled  to  cut  off  and  sell 
the  braids  of  her  hair  in  order  to  obtain  money 
for  food.  Finally  Akiba,  who  had  risen  step 
by  step,  gained  renown ;  and,  when  he  returned 
to  Jerusalem  accompanied  by  a  host  of  disciples, 
and  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  Jewish  com- 
munity, Calba  Sabua  laid  aside  his  prejudice, 
and  gave  him  his  daughter  for  a  wife  ;  bestow- 
ing upon  her  a  rich  dowry,  so  that  from  that 
time  she  could  live  in  abundance. 

Do  you  suppose  that  a  man  of  the  stamp  of 
Rabbi  Akiba,  who  not  only  believed  in  the 
divine  origin  of  the  Bible,  but  even  maintained 
that  every  letter  in  it  had  a  secret  meaning :  do 
you  suppose  for  a  moment  that  such  a  man  did 
not  understand  the  meaning  of  the  prophets 
in  regard  to  a  Messiah,  at  least  as  well  as  Chris- 
tian clergymen  of  to-day,  who  do  not  tire  of 
quoting  the  Old  Testament  in  support  of  their 
theories?  If  Akiba  could  have  made  one  pas- 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  73 

sage,  yea,  even  one  word,  of  Scripture  tally 
with  the  appearance  of  Jesus  as  a  Messiah,  he 
would  surely  and  willingly  have  accepted  him. 
Or  do  you  suppose  that  a  man  of  such  an  iron 
will  and  as  practical  as  Rabbi  Akiba  must  have 
been,  would  have  accepted  the  very  first  adven- 
turer as  a  Messiah,  that  he  would  have  sacrificed 
his  influence,  his  time,  his  money,  his  life,  for 
an  impostor  ?  This  very  Akiba,  a  second 
Samuel,  pointed  out  Bar  Kochba,  and  intro- 
duced him  to  the  people  as  the  long-expected 
Messiah.  This  very  Akiba  travelled  for  years, 
visiting  all  Jewish  colonies,  levying  money  and 
men  for  the  Messiah.  From  one  of  his  trips  he 
is  said  to  have  returned  with  thirty  thousand 
disciples,  probably  young  men  whom  he  had 
enlisted  for  his  cause. 

Bar  Kochba,  or  Bar  Kosiba,  which  name  he 
derived  from  the  small  town  of  Kosiba  or  Kesib, 
was  the  embodiment  of  all  the  qualities  expected 
to  appertain  to  a  Messiah.  He  was  of  powerful, 
herculean  build ;  tall,  muscular,  strong.  He 
was  the  model  of  a  soldier.  He  would  sleep  on 
the  bare  ground,  and  share  the  coarse  food  of 
his  soldiers.  In  battle  he  would  be  seen  at  the 
most  dangerous  points,  whirling  his  battle-axe 
with  undaunted  courage.  He  was  a  skilful 
leader,  who  outgeneralled  the  most  experienced 
soldiers  of  Rome.  Deep  as  was  his  hatred  for 
Rome  was  his  love  for  his  country.  He  was 


74  Messianic  Expectations. 

modest  and  willing  to  listen ;  and  for  all  this 
his  followers  worshipped  him.  How  he  had 
passed  his  youth,  where  he  had  obtained  his 
military  knowledge,  nobody  knew.  There  he 
was  at  the  time  when  all  was  prepared,  ami 
people  were  only  waiting  for  the  leader;  an-1 
the  impression  which  he  must  have  made  upon 
the  people  was  such  that,  without  examining  his 
past  record,  all,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
learned  and  the  simple,  flocked  to  his  banner, 
and  obeyed  implicitly  his  commands.  Within 
the  space  of  one  year  he  stormed  fifty  fortified 
places,  and  freed  nine  hundred  and  eighty-five 
towns  held  by  the  Romans  ;  and  when  the  year 
133  dawned,  not  a  single  Roman  was  to  be  seen 
in  Palestine. 

At  first  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  occupied  with 
other  schemes,  gave  little  attention  to  the  re- 
volt;  but  when  the  most  renowned  legions  had 
lost  their  prestige  on  Jewish  battle-grounds ; 
when  his  best  generals  returned  defeated  by  a 
foe  unknown  before ;  when  the  Orient,  observing 
that  the  Romans  were  not  invincible,  began  to 
awaken  from  its  slumber  and  to  rally  around  the 
victorious  Messiah,  he  tremblingly  acknowleged 
the  great  danger  that  threatened  the  empire, 
and  took  immediate  steps  to  suppress  the  rebel- 
lion at  whatever  cost.  He  ordered  his  best 
general,  Julius  Severus,  the  Moltke  of  his  time, 
from  England,  where  his  presence  had  been 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  75 

needed,  to  proceed  at  once  to  Palestine.  He 
gave  him  a  large  army  of  picked  soldiers,  and 
all  the  supplies  he  wanted.  Bar  Kochba,  on  his 
part,  remained  not  idle  during  the  two  years 
which  Severus  needed  to  organize  his  forces  for 
the  task.  He  made  an  attempt  to  rebuild  Jeru- 
salem and  the  temple.  He  made  use  of  the  pre- 
rogatives of  a  king,  and  issued  coins  stamped 
with  the  inscription  "  Cheruth  Jerusalem," 
Freedom  of  Jerusalem,  a  few  of  which  are  still 
to  be  seen.  He  fortified  a  number  of  cities, 
and  was  so  confident  of  his  final  success  that  he 
is  reported  to  have  uttered  the  almost  blasphe- 
mous words,  "  O  God,  if  it  does  not  please  thee 
to  assist  us,  withhold,  at  least,  thy  aid  from  our 
enemies ;  we  shall  then  stand  our  own,  and  be 
victorious."  Severus  did  not  dare  to  meet  his 
adversary  in  open  battle.  He  adopted  the  same 
stratagem  which  Fabius  the  Cunctator  had 
used  against  Hannibal.  He  refused  to  fight  a 
battle ;  but  he  drew  a  large  circle  of  fortified 
camps  around  the  whole  of  Palestine,  from 
which  he  sent  his  cavalry  to  tire  the  enemy  in 
small  encounters,  and  to  cut  off  supplies.  Bar 
Kochba  had  no  horsemen  to  check  the  ravages 
of  the  Romans  ;  and,  in  spite  of  all  heroism,  was 
not  able  to  break  the  circle  which  Severus  now 
contracted  inch  by  inch.  One  Jewish  fort  after 
the  other  had  to  surrender  for  want  of  supplies  ; 
and  soon  the  iron  band  closed  around  the  for- 


76  Messianic  Expectations. 

tress  of  Betar,  into  which  Bar  Kochba  had  been 
forced  with  the  flower  of  his  army.  Betar  must 
have  been  a  city  of  the  size  of  Metz ;  and  the 
siege  and  defence  of  that  city  must  have  been  a 
wonder  of  military  skill.  The  two  greatest  gen- 
erals of  their  time  exhausted  their  genius  in 
moves  and  counter-moves.  Every  inch  of  land 
was  contested  with  bravery  and  skill,  such  as 
had  seldom  been  witnessed  before. 

The  Roman  general  finally  despaired  of  cap- 
turing the  city.  Epidemics  had  decimated  his 
legions ;  and  though  he  had  fought  for  a  whole 
year  before  Betar,  he  had  not  gained  the  least 
advantage  over  his  foe.  He  was  about  to  raise 
the  siege,  when  two  Samaritan  traitors  showed 
him  a  secreted  aqueduct  which  supplied  the  city 
with  water.  He  shut  the  water  off  at  once  ; 
but  even  the  most  excruciating  pains  of  thirst 
could  not  make  the  noble  garrison  of  Betar 
surrender  the  place.  Not  before  the  Romans 
had  found  a  way  into  the  city,  by  enlarging  the 
same  aqueduct,  was  the  fate  of  Betar  and  that 
of  Judea  sealed.  On  a  Sabbath  day,  Severus 
stormed  the  city.  Bar  Kochba,  a  second  Leoni- 
das,  fell,  sword  in  hand,  covered  with  honorable 
wounds.  He  would  not  survive  the  final  doom 
of  his  nation.  A  legend  says  that,  when  a  man 
brought  the  head  of  Bar  Kochba  to  Severus, 
and  claimed  that  he  had  slain  him,  the  latter 
said,  "  If  this  man  has  not  been  killed  by  God 


A  Genuine  Messiah,  77 

himself,  the  power  of  a  mortal  could  never  have 
harmed  him."  Another  legend  reports  that 
his  body,  when  found,  was  encircled  by  a  snake, 
which  would  allow  nobody  to  harm  it. 

Thus  died  Bar  Kochba,  a  hero  and  a  patriot. 
He  would  have  sacrificed  ten  more  lives  upon 
the  altar  of  his  country,  if  such  had  been  possi- 
ble. Although  he  has  been  almost  forgotten ; 
although  the  masses  have  never  heard  of  him  ; 
although  our  Christian  friends  are  not  aware  of 
it,  that  the  Jews  once  accepted  a  Messiah,  and 
cheerfully  spilled  their  blood  in  his  service,  be- 
cause he  was  the  type  of  that  Messiah  of  which 
they  had  dreamed ;  although  no  poet  has  sung 
his  praise,  Bar  Kochba  is  no  myth.  His  history 
is  written  in  the  heart-blood  of  the  nation  upon 
the  soil  of  Palestine.  The  Talmud  contains 
numerous  passages  referring  to  him.  Even  the 
Gospels  allude  to  him  ;  *  another  indication  of 

*  Mark  xiii.  5-13.  Take  heed  lest  any  man  deceive  you.  For 
some  shall  come  under  my  name,  saying,  I  am  the  Messiah, 
and  shall  deceive  many.  And  when  ye  shall  hear  of  wars  and 
rumors  of  war,  be  ye  not  troubled :  for  such  things  need  be. 
For  nations  shall  rise  against  nations,  and  kingdom  against 
kingdom.  .  .  .  But  take  heed  to  yourselves,  for  they  shall  de- 
liver you  up  to  councils  and  in  the  synagogues  ye  shall  be 
beaten.  .  .  .  Now  the  brother  shall  betray  the  brother,  etc. 

The  some  (rfc)  who  was  to  assume  the  role  of  a  Messiah,  and 
of  whom  the  faithful  were  to  beware,  is  Bar  Kochba,  whose 
patriotism  has  not  been  without  influence  upon  the  Jew-Chris- 
tians. The  writer  of  Mark,  who  had  witnessed  the  Bar 
Kochba  revolt,  puts  the  graphic  picture  of  it  into  the  mouth 


78  Messianic  Expectations. 

the  time  in  which  they  were  written.  A  Greek 
historian,  Dion  Cassius,  speaks  with  reverence 
of  him.  There  are  still  to  be  seen  the  coins 
which  he  had  caused  to  be  minted ;  and  even 
the  minutes  kept  by  the  Roman  Senate  bore 
evidence  to  his  greatness.  When  Severus  re- 
ported to  the  august  body  his  final  victory  over 
the  enemy,  he  omitted  the  customary  introduc- 
tion, "  I  and  the  army  are  well."  Indeed, 
neither  he  nor  his  army  was  well.  His  victory 
had  the  semblance  of  a  defeat.  Neither  did 
the  Senate  grant  him  the  honor  of  a  triumph. 

Here  we  have  a  Messiah  recognized  by  the 
people,  recognized  by  its  representative,  Rabbi 
Akiba ;  a  Messiah  who  laid  down  his  life  upon 
the  altar  of  his  country  ;  but  did  Judaism  make 
a  God  of  him?  Did  it  allow  him  to  change 
one  of  its  laws?  Did  he  or  his  followers 
ever  attempt  to  change  a  law,  on  the  ground 

of  Jesus  as  a  prophecy.  The  wars  and  rumors  of  -war  and  the 
words  nations  shall  rise  against  nations  are  not  less  descrip- 
tive of  the  Bar  Kochba  revolt  and  remind  us  of  the  occurrence 
of  that  time  which  Dion  Cassius  describes  as  follows :  <ai  *&<niv, 
Of  tlirtiv,  Ktvovfilvrjs  lirl  ToZrif  rjj$  oiicoi'plviif.  The  passage,  for  they 
shall  deliver  you  up  to  councils  (<n'i//6p<a),  and  in  the  synagogues 
ye  shall  be  beaten,  agrees  with  the  statements  of  Justin  and 
Eusebius,  who  say  that  Bar  Kochba  had  punished  the  Jew- 
Christians  because  they  would  not  fight  against  the  Romans. 
Eusebius,  in  his  history  of  the  I7th  year  of  Hadrian,  says  : 
Cochebas  plurimos  Christianos  diversis  suppliciis  affecit,  eo 
quo  noluissent  proficisci  cum  illo  pugnatum  contra  Romanes. 
Compare  Gratz,  History  of  the  Jews,  vol.  iv.,  note  15. 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  79 

of  his  Messianic  authority  ?  Has  ever  a  cult  or 
a  ceremony  been  instituted  to  commemorate' 
his  life  and  death  ?  Though  the  Jewish  nation 
has  mourned  him  with  bitter  tears,  his  ill  luck 
has  made  him  share  the  fate  of  all  unsuccessful  ! 
It  is  due  to  modern  research  that  the  marvellous 
career  of  Bar  Kochba  is  brought  to  acknowl- 
edgment, and  his  heroic  patriotism  duly  appre- 
ciated. 

Although  Rabbi  Akiba  had  introduced  Bar 
Kochba  as  the  expected  Messiah,  he  never  at- 
tempted to  make  a  tool  of  him.  The  confidence 
of  the  people  rested  in  the  qualities  of  the  Mes- 
siah, and  the  recommendation  of  a  man  who 
had  been  the  interpreter  of  the  law  for  so  many 
years  only  strengthened  it.  Rabbi  Akiba  sur- 
vived the  fall  of  Betar.  It  is  said  that  he 
miraculously  escaped  before  its  capture,  and 
that  for  some  time  he  was  the  eye-witness  of 
the  sufferings  through  which  his  nation  had  to 
pass. 

It  has  been  claimed  that  the  misery  which 
had  followed  the  Jewisfi  nation  was  a  punish- 
ment of  God  for  their  rejecting  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth as  a  Messiah,  and  that  it  is  a  proof  that 
they  must  have  crucified  him.  How  can  such  a 
claim  be  reconciled  with  the  justice  of  God  ? 
How  could  our  ancestors  have  acknowledged  an 
unknown  man,  whose  name  was  afterward  used 
to  change,  if  not  to  abolish,  the  law  ?  Did  they 


8o  Messianic  Expectations. 

not  show  their  firm  belief  when  the  man  ap- 
peared who  tallied  with  their  expectations  of  a 
Messiah  ?  Had  they  not  all  cause  to  believe 
in  the  Messiahship  of  Bar  Kochba,  better  cause 
than  they  had  to  believe  in  that  of  the  Naza- 
rene  ?  Had  Bar  Kochba  not  led  the  life  of  a 
conscientious  Jew  ?  Had  he  ever  attempted  to 
lead  them  from  their  inherited  religion  ?  Had 
he  not  been  successful  in  the  first  years  of  the 
revolt  ?  And  as  he  showed  all  the  qualities  of 
a  true  Messiah,  could  they  help  believing  in 
him  ?  Was  their  devotion  to  him  and  his 
cause  of  no  merit  in  the  eyes  of  God  ?  Was 
their  heroism  deserving  of  the  cruel  punish- 
ment which  followed  ?  Was  it  not  rather  de- 
serving of  reward  ?  The  argument  that  the 
Jews  must  have  crucified  Jesus  because  they 
have  been  persecuted  since  is  simply  absurd. 
Turn  it  around,  and  you  will  come  nearer  to 
the  truth.  Our  history  would  have  run  quite 
smoothly  if  ignorance  had  not  considered  it  an 
act  of  piety  to  make  it  fit  -with  some  alleged 
predictions  ;  if  our  oppressors  and  persecutors 
had  not  considered  it  a  high  distinction  to 
serve  as  the  instruments  of  punishment. 

But  let  me  return  to  Rabbi  Akiba.  He  was 
finally  imprisoned  on  the  charge  that  he  had 
been  an  instigator  of  the  revolt,  and  he  suffered 
martyrdom  from  the  hands  of  the  Romans. 
The  agonies  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  if  the  narra- 


A  Genuine  Messiah.  81 

tive  of  the  Gospels  is  admitted,  are  less  than 
the  sufferings  of  Rabbi  Akiba,  who  was  flayed 
alive.  But  in  the  hour  of  death,  he  did  not 
despairingly  exclaim,  "  My  God,  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me? "  He  died  with  the  words  on  his 
lips,  "  Hear,  O  Israel :  the  Lord  our  God  is  one 
God." 

Israel  has  never  forgotten  its  noble  heroes 
nor  its  martyrs.  It  has  paid  them  their  tribute 
of  tears,  and  mourns  them  still :  but  it  never 
made  saints  of  them :  it  never  worshipped 
them :  it  never  preserved  their  relics  and 
worked  miracles  with  them  ;  and  this  is  the 
cause  why  the  name  of  Bar  Kochba  has  not 
become  as  familiar  a  household  word  as  has 
the  name  of  many  another  man  of  antiquity, 
who  was  far  inferior  to  him  in  genius  and 
patriotism. 

The  revolt  of  Bar  Kochba  was  the  last  great 
military  enterprise  of  our  nation.  After  it,  it 
ceased  to  be  a  political  body ;  and  its  future 
history  is  that  of  a-  religious  sect.  We  do  not 
claim  to-day  to  be  a  nation.  The  enlightened 
Israelite  of  to-day  does  not  feel  in  the  least  cha- 
grined that  he  has  no  country  of  his  own  or  a 
king  to  rule  over  him.  We  are  sincere  and 
patriotic  citizens  of  the  country  in  which  we 
live.  We  are  good  Germans  in  Germany,  good 
Frenchmen  in  France,  law-abiding  Englishmen 
in  England ;  and  in  this  our  glorious  republic, 


82  Messianic  Expectations. 

which  better  than  any  other  country  in  the 
world  protects  our  liberties  and  our  rights,  we 
are  true  and  faithful  Americans,  ready  to  prove 
it  with  our  blood,  if  an  emergency  for  such  a 
proof  should  arise.  We  wish  for  no  other  coun- 
try and  for  no  other  form  of  government ;  and 
all  our  efforts  are  directed  toward  the  one  great 
aim  cherished  by  all  true  Americans,  without 
distinction  of  race,  color,  or  creed  ;  the  aim  to 
make  our  beloved  country  respected  and  hon- 
ored all  over  the  world. 


VI. 

THE  SPANISH  INQUISITION. 

THOUSAND  years  are  in  the  eyes  of 
God  as  one  day,  sings  the  Psalmist ; 
but  in  the  eye  of  man,  a  millennium  is 
quite  a  long  time.  If,  therefore,  I  should  pass 
over  such  a  period  in  my  research  in  silence,  if 
I  should  take  one  great  stride  from  the  third  to 
the  thirteenth  century  without  alluding  to 
those  centuries  with  at  least  a  few  words,  I 
should  be  unjust  to  my  task  and  at  the  same 
time  lack  a  connecting  link. 

After  the  defeat  of  Bar  Kochba,  Israel,  as  I 
explained  in  my  last  lecture,  ceased  to  be  a 
nation,  and  became  a  religious  sect.  With  this 
change,  Messianic  expectations  lost  their  origi- 
nally political  character  and  assumed  a  philo- 
sophical form.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  young 
Christian  church,  all  Messianic  Expectations 
would  in  all  probability  have  then  died  out. 
The  more,  however,  the  church  insisted  upon 
the  dogma  that  in  Jesus  the  Messiah  had  ap- 
peared ;  the  more  it  busied  itself  in  digging  out 
passages  of  the  prophets  which  were  to  prove 
83 


84  Messianic  Expectations. 

it ;  the  more  it  interpreted  and  interpolated  the 
Scripture  to  suit  its  purpose,  the  more  our  ances- 
tors emphasized  the  doctrine  that  a  Messiah 
was  to  come.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  the 
early  church  was  actually  for  almost  three  hun- 
dred years  expecting  the  return  of  their  Messiah, 
and  that  thus  in  a  natural  way  a  similar  notion 
was  strengthened  amongst  the  Jews.  When 
finally  Christ  did  not  re-appear,  the  church 
changed  its  front.  The  Messiah  being  apparently 
unwilling  to  return  to  this  world,  his  adherents 
went  to  him.  Heaven  with  all  its  joys  and  a 
purgatory  with  all  its  infernal  modes  of  torture 
were  created.  The  Malchuth  Shamajim,  "  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,"  originally  denoting  an  era 
of  universal  happiness  upon  earth,  was  placed 
beyond  the  clouds,  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
sceptic ;  and  the  wings  of  imagination,  thus 
freed  from  the  fear  of  the  clipping  shears  of 
reason,  grew  and  spread  to  an  extent  unknown 
before.  Judaism  knew  originally  neither  of  a 
heaven  nor  of  a  purgatory.  Its  laws  were  made 
to  deal  with  "one  world  at  a  time" ;  and  though 
immortality  was  not  and  is  not  denied  by  it, 
it  shrank  and  still  shrinks  from  the  material- 
ization or  the  description  of  a  future  life. 
Though  it  afterward  became  somewhat  infected 
with  these  doctrines,  its  healthy  condition  did 
not  allow  the  disease  to  spread ;  and  intelli- 
gent Israelites  have  done  away  with  such  no- 


The  Spanish  Inquisition.  85 

tions  as  they  have  with  Messianic  expecta- 
tions. 

The  more  Christianity  embellished,  frescoed, 
and  decorated  its  heaven  around  the  God-Mes- 
siah in  the  centre,  the  more  clung  Judaism 
to  the  belief  in  the  advent  of  a  secular  Messiah, 
who  should  restore  their  nationality,  take  away 
the  very  opprobrium  of  their  existence,  and 
make  them  respected  again  in  the  world.  But 
this  was  a  mere  doctrinal  hope,  if  I  am  per- 
mitted to  call  it  so.  Like  morphine,  it  soothed 
the  pain,  though  it  did  not  heal  the  wound. 
All  kinds  of  chimerical  ideas  therefore  gathered 
around  it,  as  for  instance,  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead,  the  stern  judgment  which  the  Messiah 
would  hold  over  the  world,  and  so  on.  It  is  a 
sweet  consolation  for  the  oppressed  to  hope 
against  hope.  Thus  it  afforded  some  consola- 
tion to  our  ancestors,  when  they  were  driven 
from  country  to  country  and  were  deprived  of 
their  human  rights,  to  murmur :  Wait  till 
our  Messiah  comes ;  then  we  shall  compare 
accounts. 

During  these  thousand  years,  here  and  there 
and  now  and  then  an  adventurer  would  appear, 
who  would  assume  the  role  of  a  Messiah,  gain 
some  renown  in  small  circles,  and  then  disappear. 
In  greater  favor,  however,  were  speculations  as 
to  the  time  when  the  Messiah  was  to  come  ; 
and  all  kinds  of  reckoning  were  indulged  in. 


86  Messianic  Expectations. 

Some  would  count  the  letters  of  a  Scriptural 
passage,  others  would  endeavor  to  find  that 
time  by  astrological  calculations.  Maimonides, 
who  at  his  time  was  a  rationalist  of  the  first 
rank,  the  first  philosopher  after  Aristotle  who 
re-admitted  reason  into  religious  speculations : 
Maimonides,  who  at  his  time  was  as  ferociously 
attacked  by  the  Orthodox  wing  of  Judaism  as 
to-day  he  is  enthusiastically  quoted  by  the  same 
party  as  its  champion :  Maimonides,  to  whom  we 
owe  the  thirteen  articles  of  creed,  among  which 
we  find  a  plank  inserted  in  favor  of  Messianic 
expectations,  —  this  very  Maimonides  warns 
against  giving  such  aspirations  a  practical  turn. 
In  a  circular  letter  to  the  congregations  of  Yemen 
he  proves  to  them  that  whenever  these  hopes 
had  ceased  to  be  hopes  and  attempts  had  been 
made  to  realize  them,  such  attempts  had  always 
been  followed  by  evil  consequences. 

As  I  do  not  intend  to  give  the  history  of  the 
Jews  during  this  millennium,  I  shall  with  these 
few  remarks  dismiss  that  subject  and  turn  to 
the  topic  which  I  have  chosen  for  discussion, 
namely,  "  The  Spanish  Inquisition  "  ;  without 
which  my  next  lecture,  on  Solomon  Molcho, 
would  be  incomprehensible. 

The  Inquisition  in  general,  and  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  in  particular,  is,  as  all  fair-minded 
people  concede,  an  indelible  stain  on  the  history 
of  the  Christian  church.  No  matter  how  many 


The  Spanish  Inquisition.  87 

nohle  principles  the  church  ever  championed, 
the  terror  of  the  Inquisition  forces  them  all 
into  the  background ;  no  matter  how  radiant  the 
halo  is  which  encircles  the  brow  of  its  saints, 
the  names  of  Innocent  III.,  Fernando  Martinez, 
Torquemada,  Ferdinand  "and  Isabella,  hang  over 
it  as  a  darkling  cloud.  The  Inquisition  has  left 
its  autograph  upon  the  pages  of  history  in  such 
traces  of  blood  that  all  the  waters  of  the  ocean 
cannot  wash  them  away.  For  two  hundred 
years  and  more  hecatombs  of  human  beings 
were  sacrificed  almost  daily  "ad  majorem  Dei 
gloriam,"  unto  the  greater  glory  of  God.  For 
two  hundred  years  and  more  the  smoke  which 
arose  from  innumerable  pyres  upon  which 
human  beings  were  burned  alive  darkened  the 
sky.  For  two  hundred  years  and  more  human 
beings  were  systematically  tortured  and  killed, 
for  no  other  reason  but  that  they  differed  in 
opinion  with  their  oppressors.  We  can  hardly 
understand  to-day  how  humanity  could  have  for- 
gotten itself  to  such  a  degree  ;  it  is  well  nigh 
impossible  for  us  to  understand  to-day  how  the 
church,  which  had  proclaimed  itself  the  cham- 
pion of  brotherly  love,  which  had  promised  to 
extend  love  even  to  an  enemy,  could  have  so 
utterly  failed  in  the  execution  of  its  principles, 
just  when  it  stood  at  the  zenith  of  its  power.  It 
is,  therefore,  worth  while  to  look  into  the  causes 
from  which  this  phenomenal  institution  sprang. 


88  Messianic  Expectations. 

It  may  appear  quite  a  paradox  to  say  that 
"  Love  "  was  the  first  cause  for  all  the  cruelties 
of  the  Inquisition.  But  let  us  be  just  and  fair, 
no  matter  how  much  we  have  been  the  suffer- 
ers. Love  was  its  first  cause.  During  the 
twelve  hundred  years  of  its  existence  Christian- 
ity had  developed  in  a  manner  which  its  inno- 
cent founders  had  never  anticipated.  Not  to 
speak  of  the  establishment  of  the  trinitarian 
doctrine,  of  the  changing  of  the  Sabbath  day 
from  the  seventh  to  the  first  day  of  the  week, 
or  of  the  introduction  of  saint  and  relic  worship, 
the  dogma  of  eternal  happiness  and  eternal 
punishment,  or,  to  call  it  by  its  right  name, 
the  dogma  of  heaven  and  hell,  had  been  worked 
out  in  the  most  fantastic  manner.  The  tortures 
and  flames  of  purgatory  were  depicted  in  such 
terrifying  colors  that  the  stoutest  heart  trem- 
bled at  the  mere  thought  of  them.  The  church 
maintained  that  man  was  conceived  in  sin ;  that 
therefore  he  was  sentenced  even  before  his 
birth  to  an  everlasting  abode  in  these  infernal 
spheres  ;  that  the  belief  in  the  Saviour  alone 
could  snatch  him  from  purgatory ;  and  that  the 
few  drops  of  the  baptismal  water  alone  had  the 
secret  power  to  save  him  from  the  eternal  fire. 
The  rational  thinker  of  to-day  wonders  that 
nobody  at  that  time  ever  questioned  how  eter- 
nal punishment  could  be  reconciled  with  the 
justice  of  God ;  but,  it  is  a  fact,  nobody  was 


The  Spanish  Inquisition.  89 

ever  struck  by  that  idea,  and  for  a  long  time 
even  the  absurd  question  was  under  earnest 
discussion,  whether  the  souls  of  still-born  chil- 
dren were  to  burn  eternally  or  not.  How  firmly 
rooted  these  queer  notions  were,  is  to  be  seen 
from  the  fact  that  even  Protestantism  could  not 
entirely  part  with  them  ;  that  Luther  threw  his 
inkstand  at  the  devil  who  appeared  to  him  ;  and 
that  even  in  this  country  witches  were  tried, 
sentenced,  and  burned.  Even  to-day  only  a 
small  minority  of  our  Christian  friends,  the  Uni- 
versalists  and  Unitarians  alone,  have  practically 
denounced  the  dogma  of  eternal  punishment. 

These  premises  granted,  it  was  indeed  an  act 
of  "Love  "  to  save  a  person  from  eternal  damna- 
tion, even  against  his  will,  and  by  means  no 
matter  how  disagreeable  to  him.  The  argu- 
ment of  the  church  basing  itself  upon  this 
hypothesis  was  as  sound  as  the  hypothesis  was 
absurd.  The  church  would  argue  thus:  The 
surgeon  will  inflict  upon  his  patient  momentary 
pain  in  order  to  save  him  from  death  ;  thus  it 
is  better  to  bring  the  momentary  pain  of  the 
torture  or  the  pyre  upon  a  heretic  than  to  allow 
him  to  pass  into  the  eternal  flames  of  purgatory, 
from  which  God  himself  could  not  then  save 
him;  or,  as  you  will  use  the  whip  to  drive 
cattle  from  a  burning  stable  in  spite  of  their 
struggles,  thus  the  blind  heretic,  who  does  not 
see  the  flames  which  are  awaiting  him  for  all 


90  Messianic  Expectations. 

eternity,  must  be  driven  by  force  into  the  folds 
of  the  soul-saving  church. 

This  motive  of  love  may  have  actuated  some 
of  the  inquisitors  ;  and,  in  order  to  be  fair,  let 
us  say  many  of  them ;  for  this  motive  is  the 
only  excuse  for  the  horrifying  cruelties  com- 
mitted. But  so  much  is  sure  ;  it  did  not  actuate 
all  of  them. 

The  second  motive  was  "  Fear."  The  church, 
which  had  built  its  structure  upon  imaginary 
props  became  timid  when  reason  began  to  ex- 
amine the  foundation.  So  far  it  had  dealt  with 
barbarians,  who  were  unaccustomed  to  rea'son. 
The  Marionite  monks  had  clubbed  Greek  phi- 
losophers to  death  ;  but  they  could  not  as  easily 
kill  reason.  The  spirit  of  scepticism  with 
which  an  all-wise  Creator  has  endowed  man, 
the  most  beloved  of  all  his  creatures,  began  to 
move ;  and  these  motions  were  felt :  they  shook 
the  foundation  of  the  church.  The  Inquisition 
all  over  Christendom  and  also  in  Spain  was  not 
directed  against  Jews  as  such  :  it  was  directed 
against  Christian  heretics  and  against  that  ele- 
ment which,  formerly  Jewish,  had  turned  Chris- 
tian from  compulsion  and  had  now  become  the 
most  troublesome  and  dangerous  enemy  from 
within.  The  church  attempted  to  stamp  out 
all  rationalism.  There  was  to  be  only  one  head 
and  one  will  all  over  the  world  ;  namely,  that  of 
an  infallible  Pope,  who  could  not  err,  and  to 


The  Spanish  Inquisition.  91 

whose  decrees  all  humanity  was  to  submit  with- 
out giving  them  a  single  thought.  But  the 
spectre  of  Protestantism  already  haunted  the 
chambers  of  the  Vatican,  and  the  Inquisition 
was  resorted  to  in  self-defence. 

The  Inquisition  in  Spain  had  still  a  third 
cause.  In  the  beginning  of  the  eighth  century, 
the  Mohammedans  had  entered  Spain  from  the 
south  and  conquered  it.  The  Christians  had 
been  driven  to  the  northern  part  of  the  penin- 
sula or  to  France,  whence  they  kept  up  a  con- 
stant warfare  with  the  intruders.  Though  the 
Mohammedans  had  firmly  established  them- 
selves on  Spanish  soil,  and  had  civilized  that 
country  to  a  high  degree,  their  days  were  num- 
bered. Step  by  step  the  warlike  Christians 
regained  the  lost  ground.  One  castle  after  an- 
other, one  city  after  another,  was  reconquered. 
The  Jews,  who  had  been  tolerably  treated  by 
the  Mohammedans,  had  arisen  to  a  high  degree 
of  culture,  and  formed  a  large  part  of  the  popu- 
lation. They  owned  real  estate  and  factories, 
carried  on  a  large  commerce,  and  rivalled  even 
in  chivalry  their  fellow-citizens,  of  both  Chris- 
tian and  Mohammedan  descent.  While,  how- 
ever, the  Moors  could  withdraw  from  before  the 
pressure  of  the  Christians  to  Africa  or  Asia, 
where  their  co-religionists  were  in  power,  the 
Jews  had  to  remain ;  and  their  high  intelli- 
gence, and  still  more  their  wealth,  were  looked 


92  Messianic  Expectations. 

at  with  envy  by  the  poor  and  rude  victors. 
They  wanted  their  money,  their  houses,  their 
fields,  their  factories. 

The  father  of  the  Inquisition  was  Pope 
Innocent  III.,  who  ascended  the  papal  see  in 
1198.  He  suggested  a  court  before  which  all 
heretics,  that  is,  all  who  differed  from  him, 
should  be  tried.  But  though  at  the  same  time 
he  persecuted  the  Jews,  who  had  become  a 
living  protest  against  the  paganization  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  Inquisition  as  such  had  not  yet 
occasion  to  deal  with  them.  Its  activity  against 
Jews  dates  from  a  later  period. 

Ferdinand  Martinez,  a  fanatic  monk,  was 
travelling  through  Spain  on  a  missionary  tour, 
preaching  against  all  infidels  in  general,  and 
against  the  Jews  in  particular.  On  the  I5th  of 
March,  1391,  he  preached  in  the  market-place 
of  Seville  and  inflamed  the  mob  to  a  riot  against 
the  Jews,  which,  though  stopped  for  the  time 
by  the  government,  was  soon  repeated.  The 
Jewish  quarters  were  stormed  on  the  6th  of 
June  in  the  same  year ;  almost  thirty  thousand 
Jews  were  killed,  and  their  dwellings  sacked. 
Three  thousand  families  saved  their  lives  by 
submitting  to  baptism.  The  example  of  Seville 
infected  all  Spain ;  and  riots  occurred  in  every 
city,  all  with  the  same  result.  A  part  of  the 
Jews  were  slaughtered  ;  a  few,  after  having 
escaped  with  their  bare  lives,  eked  out  a  miser- 


The  Spanish  Inquisition,  93 

able  subsistence  in  obscure  villages  :  the  larger 
part  turned  Christians.  Who  could  blame 
them  if  under  such  conditions  they  succumbed 
to  the  pressure  of  temptation  ?  On  the  one 
side,  death  or  the  misery  of  the  outcast  for 
themselves  and  their  children,  on  the  other  a 
life  of  respectability  and  affluence.  All  that 
was  required  of  them- was  to  surfer  the  rite  of 
baptism,  refrain  from  Jewish  ceremonies  and 
customs,  and  adopt  those  of  the  church  in  their 
stead.  The  Moors,  who  were  not  so  scrupulous 
in  regard  to  apostasy,  gave  an  inviting  example, 
and  before  long  all  Spain  was  full  of  Jewish 
and  Moorish  converts.  A  few  more  years 
and  these  converts  had  gained  back  by  their 
intelligence,  industry,  temperance,  and  en- 
terprise, what  the  mob  had  taken  away  from 
them.  They  soon  formed  the  aristocracy, 
filled  the  highest  offices  in  state  and  church ; 
in  a  word,  they  soon  became  the  rulers  of 
the  country. 

It  may  be  easy  to  accustom  one's  self  to  the 
thoughtless  performance  of  some  meaningless 
ceremony  ;  but  it  is  not  as  easy  for  one  accus- 
tomed to  reason  to  submit  conscientiously  to  a 
creed  inferior  to  his  former  one.  A  man  may 
deceive  others ;  but  he  can  never  belie  himself. 
There  was  never  a  Jew  at  that  time  converted 
to  Christianity  who  conscientiously  believed  in 
the  doctrines  of  his  adopted  religion.  They 


94  Messianic  Expectations. 

were  all  hypocrites,  who  had  changed  their  creed 
for  earthly  considerations  merely.  They  could 
not  have  been  conscientious ;  for,  although 
many  may  differ  from  me,  I  still  maintain  that 
Judaism  is  built  upon  reason,  and  not  upon 
belief.  The  Jew  is  a  born  reasoner  ;  he  is  a 
rationalist  by  his  very  nature  ;  he  is  scepticism 
personified.  The  Spanish  converts  soon  proved 
to  be  the  most  dangerous  acquisition  the  church 
could  ever  have  made.  Although  they  went 
to  mass  and  practised  all  the  rites  which  their 
new  religion  prescribed,  they  did  not  believe 
in  its  doctrines  :  they  ridiculed  them  as  absurd ; 
and  infected  with  their  sarcastic  doubts  their 
credulous  friends.  A  riot  once  arose  against 
them  from  an  insignificant  cause,  which  never- 
theless illustrates  vividly  the  condition  of  affairs 
at  that  time.  There  had  been  a  drought  in  a 
Spanish  district,  and  a  famine  was  feared.  A 
pious  fraud  produced  some  relic  in  which  a 
light  could  be  observed  ;  and  processions  were 
formed  to  that  shrine  in  order  to  ask  the 
mediation  of  the  saints  for  rain.  While  the 
credulous  and  superstitious  populace  bowed 
reverently  before  the  miraculous  relic,  a  pseudo- 
Christian  sarcastically  remarked  that  water 
would  be  better  appreciated  than  the  fire  which 
the  relic  contained.  He  and  his  friends  were 
mobbed. 

The  pseudo-Christians  furthermore   found   a 


The  Spanish  Inquisition.  95 

certain  charm  in  secretly  observing  the  rites  of 
Judaism.  Secrecy  always  spreads  a  charm  over 
the  most  insignificant  matter.  The  boy  who  at 
his  thirteenth  year  was  secretly  taken  by  his 
father  to  some  obscure  cave,  and  after  giving 
several  passwords  was  introduced  to  a  congre- 
gation of  pseudo-Christians  and  had  to  take  a 
fearful  oath  that  he  would  never  betray  them, 
must  have  been  highly  impressed  with  the 
unwonted  ceremonies  which  he  was  invited  to 
perform.  The  fringed  cloak,  the  phylacteries 
which  were  given  to  him  as  a  sacred  trust, 
appeared  to  him  the  very  essentials  of  Judaism, 
with  which  he  now  became  much  more  infat- 
uated than  if  all  this  secrecy  had  not  been 
necessary.  Associating  with  one  another  by 
means  of  their  secret  meetings,  they  naturally 
intermarried  amongst  themselves ;  and  thus 
not  even  their  race  was  obliterated.  Their 
high  intellectual  abilities  and  the  ambition 
which  has  always  been  a  quality  of  the  Jewish 
character  installed  them  in  the  highest  offices 
even  of  the  church.  There  were  bishops 
amongst  them  who  would  read  mass  in  the 
morning,  and,  after  having  withdrawn  to  their 
closet,  wrap  themselves  in  their  Tallis  and 
most  fervently  read  the  Sh'ma.  On  account  of 
their  position  and  their  wealth  they  were 
distrusted  and  hated  by  the  population.  They 
were  called  Marranos. 


96  Messianic  Expectations. 

The  mystery  which  surrounds  this  word  has 
not  yet  been  solved ;  but  its  general  meaning 
was  the  accursed  ones.  With  their  former 
brethren  the  Marranos  lived  in  some  sort  of 
friendship.  They  supplied  them  with  teachers, 
and  kept  them  in  constant  communion  with 
Judaism. 

The  Inquisition  found  therefore  in  Spain  a 
larger  field  than  anywhere  else.  In  other 
countries  only  now  and  then  an  incautious 
heretic  would  venture  to  raise  his  voice  ;  but 
in  Spain  half  the  population  were  heretics. 
And  heresy  was  to  be  stamped  out  at  what- 
ever cost.  Whosoever  was  suspected  of  being  a 
secret  adherent  of  Judaism  was  brought  before 
the  inquisitory  tribunal.  The  torture  made  the 
victim  not  only  confess  his  own  guilt  but 
also  the  names  of  his  co-religionists.  Who- 
soever was  convicted  of  heresy  was  robbed  of 
his  possessions,  part  of  which  went  into  the 
King's  treasury,  another  into  the  coffers  of  the 
Inquisition,  a  third  to  the  spy  and  traitor.  If 
a  victim  of  the  Inquisition  denied  his  guilt,  he 
was  tortured  to  death  :  if  he  confessed,  he  was 
delivered  to  the  flames. 

During  the  rule  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
the  royal  pair  under  whose  government  and  for 
whose  benefit  America  was  discovered,  an  edict 
was  issued  which  exiled  every  non-Christian, 


The  Spanish  Inquisition.  97 

be  he  Jew  or  Mohammedan,  from  Spanish  soil. 
Torquemada,  the  head  of  the  Inquisition,  is 
said  to  have  wrung  the  consent  to  this  edict 
from  the  timid  king.  An  anecdote,  for  the 
truth  of  which  I  disclaim  responsibility,  but 
which  appears  not  improbable,  relates  that 
while  the  edict  was  under  discussion,  Abrabanel, 
a  wealthy  and  philanthropic  Jew,  had  offered 
his  whole  enormous  fortune  to  the  king,  whose 
greed  for  gold  was  well  known,  if  he  would 
refuse  to  issue  the  edict.  The  king  seemed 
favorably  impressed  with  the  offer,  and  hesi- 
tated to  sign  the  document.  Torquemada  at 
this  critical  moment,  when  the  life  and  happi- 
ness of  a  hundred  thousand  human  beings  was 
trembling  in  the  balance,  forced  his  way  into 
the  king's  cabinet.  He  held  a  crucifix  in  his 
hand,  and  addressed  the  king,  in  an  angry  tone, 
in  the  following  words :  "Jesus  was  sold  once 
by  Iscariot :  now  go  and  sell  him  again."  The 
bigoted  king  could  not  withstand  such  a 
pressure ;  he  yielded,  and  signed  the  edict. 

The  misery  which  followed  defies  description. 
Imagine  a  hundred  thousand  households  broken 
up,  their  members  deprived  of  all  means  of 
making  a  living,  no  country  in  the  world  ready 
to  receive  them,  means  of  transportation  scarce  ; 
while  on  the  other  hand  it  was  not  considered 
sinful,  but  rather  an  act  of  piety,  to  rob,  mur- 


98  Messianic  Expectations. 

der,  or  sell  into  slavery  the  weary  wanderers. 
Torquemada  however,  who  thought  to  crush 
the  Marranos  with  this  blow,  also  was  mistaken. 
Thousands  of  Spanish  Jews  perished  at  that 
time ;  thousands  of  others  succeeded  in  reach- 
ing other  countries  ;  but  the  majority  remained. 
They  embraced  Christianity,  and  swelled  the 
ranks  of  the  Marranos.  How  they  must  have 
loved  their  new  religion  can  easily  be  imagined. 
The  Jews  having  been  removed,  the  Spanish 
Inquisition  had  now  to  deal  with  the  Marranos 
only.  The  task  was  not  an  easy  one,  and  the 
battle  was  fought  with  skill  and  fanaticism  on 
both  sides.  Nor  were  the  Marranos  permitted 
to  convert  their  property  into  money  and  leave 
the  country.  The  very  suspicion  that  one  in- 
tended to  depart  was  sufficient  to  indict  him, 
rob  him  of  his  property,  and  sentence  him  to 
grace  the  next  auto-da-fe"  with  his  presence. 
The  papal  court  grew  rich  from  bribes  which 
both  the  Inquisition  and  the  representatives  of 
the  Marranos  offered  to  prevent  edicts  in  their 
favor  or  disfavor. 

This  persecution  was  continued  during  more 
than  two  hundred  years,  until  the  last  of  the 
Marranos  had  either  died  in  the  dungeons  of 
the  Inquisition,  or  expired  on  the  pyre,  or  made 
good  his  escape.  And  what  was  gained  by  this 
persecution  ?  Reason  was  not  suppressed ;  the 


The  Spanish  Inquisition,  99 

very  Marranos  were  the  secret  promoters  of  the 
religious  revolution  which  was  soon  to  take 
place.  After  many  a  defeat,  Protestantism 
gained  the  victory.  It  had  come  to  stay.  But 
Spain,  rich  in  itself,  and  still  enriched  by 
the  rain  of  gold  which  America  showered  upon 
it,  grew  poorer  every  day.  Her  population 
grew  up  in  ignorance  and  bigotry,  and  never 
learned  how  to  use  money  properly.  Her  best, 
her  most  intelligent  and  enterprising  citizens, 
had  been  driven  away ;  and  she  degenerated  to 
her  present  condition.  The  Jews  and  the  Mar- 
ranos exiled  from  Spain  aided  the  rise  of  Eng- 
land and  the  Netherlands.  In  the  same  degree 
that  Spanish  cities  declined,  the  cities  of  Hol- 
land and  England  grew  in  wealth  and  prosper- 
ity. The  policy  of  the  Inquisition  had  been  a 
suicidal  one. 

The  miseries  through  which  our  ancestors 
had  to  pass  during  these  two  centuries  in  that 
country  made  them  naturally  look  for  aid  from 
without ;  and  Messianic  expectations  became 
again  the  order  of  the  day.  Any  adventurer 
who  would  have  assumed  the  r61e  of  a  Messiah 
would  have  found  a  willing  ear,  support,  and  fol- 
lowers, at  that  time. 

Two  men,  on  occasions  working  together,  at 
other  times  acting  independently  of  each  other, 
produced  the  greatest  sensation  at  that  period, 


ioo  Messianic  Expectations. 

and  caused  quite  a  stir  among  both  Jews  and 
Gentiles.  It  has  not  yet  been  decided  whether 
David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho  were  ad- 
venturers, impostors,  or  deluded  partisans ;  but 
their  history  is  so  marvellous,  so  romantic,  so 
fascinating,  and  at  the  same  time  so  unknown  to 
the  public,  that  I  shall,  in  my  next  lecture,  give 
a  short  sketch  of  it. 


VII. 
DAVID  RUBENI  AND  SOLOMON  MOLCHO. 

JSCOVERIES  and  inventions  are  of  such 
frequent  occurrence  in  our  days  that  noth- 
ing less  than  the  discovery  of  a  road  con- 
necting the  earth  with  the  moon  would  startle 
us;  and  even  then  we  should  easily  overcome 
the  surprise  and  naively  ask,  "What  next?" 
Whenever  we  are  informed  by  the  press  of  a 
new  invention  or  discovery,  no  matter  how  far- 
reaching  in  its  consequences,  we  take  such  news 
as  a  matter  of  course  :  as  something  that  we 
had  a  right  to  expect  of  the  inventor  or  discov- 
erer. 

Such  indifference  may  appear  abnormal  and 
discouraging ;  but  it  keeps  us  cool  and  level- 
headed. If  the  reported  discovery  or  invention 
does  not  rest  upon  a  solid  foundation  of  proba- 
bility, we  dismiss  it  at  once  as  a  fabrication,  and 
give  it  no  further  attention.  Imagination  has 
become  subordinate  to  reason  in  our  days. 

A  few  hundred  years  ago  such  indifference 
did  not  prevail,  and  every  new  discovery 
addressed  itself  rather  to  human  imagination 


IO2  Messianic  Expectations. 

than  to  human  reason.  The  discovery  of 
America  by  Christopher  Columbus  set  the 
world  almost  wild  with  astonishment  and  sur- 
prise. Not  alone  that  a  new  continent  was 
added  to  the  world,  not  alone  that  all  the 
former  theories  as  to  the  shape  of  the  earth 
were  at  once  annihilated  :  the  newly  discovered 
country,  with  its  strange  plants,  strange  animals, 
and  still  stranger  human  population,  showered 
at  once  such  a  rain  of  wealth  upon  Spain,  the 
happy  land  which  had  been  instrumental  in  its 
discovery,  that  the  imagination  of  all  Europeans 
became  heated  to  the  highest  possible  degree, 
and  the  most  fabulous  narratives  of  travellers 
found  eager  listeners  and  enthusiastic  believers. 
Nothing  seemed  impossible  after  such  a  discov- 
ery. The  city  fathers  of  Genoa  and  the  princes 
of  Portugal  now  blamed  themselves  for  not  hav- 
ing listened  to  the  plans  of  Columbus ;  and 
they,  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the  European  princes, 
were  ready  to  invest  in  the  most  adventurous 
schemes,  simply  because  they  were  afraid  of 
losing  another  chance,  and  because  the  most  in- 
credible stories  now  seemed  probable. 

The  interior  of  Africa,  though  much  better 
known  to-day  than  ever  before,  is  still  shrouded 
in  mystery ;  and  the  exploits  of  the  late  Mahdi, 
the  siege  and  capture  of  Khartoum,  the  failure 
of  England  to  liberate  the  heroic  Gordon,  and 
what  is  of  still  greater  weight,  the  uncertainty 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho.       103 

as  to  the  final  fate  of  the  general,  are  proofs 
that  we  have  still  to  learn  a  great  deal  about 
these  far-off  regions.  Five  hundred  years  ago 
these  countries  were  still  less  known  to  the 
Europeans. 

In  the  year  1524  a  man  arrived  at  Venice  via 
Palestine  and  Egypt,  who  claimed  to  have  come 
from  the  interior  of  Africa.  He  gave  his  name 
as  David  Rubeni ;  he  said  that  he  was  the 
brother  of  Joseph,  a  Jewish  prince  who  ruled 
over  a  large  kingdom,  the  inhabitants  of  which 
were  no  others  than  the  descendants  of  the 
tribes  Reuben,  Gad,  and  Manasse.  Joseph,  as 
well  as  he  himself,  according  to  his  genealogy, 
was  descended  in  a  direct  line  from  King  David. 
He  was  in  possession  of  credentials  of  the  Jewish 
government  and  of  letters  of  recommendation 
of  Portuguese  residents  :  he  also  carried  a  silk 
flag  upon  which  the  ten  commandments  were 
embroidered,  and  he  spoke  no  other  language 
than  a  corrupt  Hebrew,  which  the  European 
Jews  could  hardly  understand.  He  said  that 
he  was  charged  with  a  message  to  Pope  Clem- 
ent VII.,  who  had  ascended  the  papal  chair  in 
1523.  Although  he  himself  did  not  say  much 
about  his  errand,  his  attendant  gave  the  secret 
away,  that  King  Joseph,  David's  brother,  had 
an  army  of  three  hundred  thousand  well-drilled 
soldiers  in  readiness  to  fall  upon  the  Turks  and 
to  reconquer  Palestine ;  but  that  he  was  in  need 


IO4  Messianic  Expectations. 

of  fire-arms  and  ammunition  ;  and  that  therefore 
he  had  sent  his  brother  to  ask  them  of  the  Pope 
or  of  any  other  prince  who  should  be  willing  to 
invest  in  the  enterprise.  He  furthermore  re- 
ported that  gold  and  diamonds  were  in  his 
country  of  no  value  whatever,  as  the  precious 
metal  and  the  costly  gems  were  so  common 
there  that  people  would  not  pick  them  up,  and 
children  only  played  with  them.  David  pre- 
tended never  to  have  studied  any  Jewish  book, 
but  claimed  to  be  a  soldier  by  profession.  He 
bragged  that  he  had  killed  with  his  own  hand 
forty  men  in  one  single  encounter.  The  good 
people  of  Venice  listened  eagerly  to  these  re- 
ports, and  never  doubted  a  word.  David  was 
a  homely  looking  fellow,  of  small  stature  and 
swarthy  complexion.  He  was  no  orator  what- 
soever, but  must  have  possessed  a  peculiar  qual- 
ity of  brazen-faced  presumption.  At  Venice  he 
shrewdly  avoided  his  co-religionists  and  re- 
mained in  the  house  of  the  sea-captain  who  had 
brought  him  from  Alexandria.  His  attendant, 
however,  drew  attention  upon  him ;  people 
called  at  his  residence  and  considered  it  a  great 
honor  to  be  admitted  into  his  presence  and  to 
aid  his  enterprise  with  money.  A  rich  Venetian 
Hebrew,  Mazliach  or  Felix  by  name,  received 
from  him  the  honorable  distinction  ofv  acting 
for  him  in  the  capacity  of  a  banker ;  that  is,  to 
discount  the  notes  which  he  drew  on  his  brother 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho.       105 

Joseph.  After  a  short  rest,  David  proceeded  to 
Rome.  Riding  a  snow-white  horse,  and  accom- 
panied by  his  attendant  and  an  interpreter,  he 
appeared  at  the  gates  of  the  Vatican,  and  to  the 
surprise  of  all  was  immediately  admitted  to  an 
audience  before  the  Cardinal  Giulio.  A  few  days 
later  the  Pope  himself  received  him,  and  accepted 
his  credentials.  These  papers  were  sent  to  the 
court  of  Portugal  for  examination,  and  were 
promptly  returned  from  there  as  genuine  docu- 
ments. The  Pope  thereupon  treated  David 
with  the  honors  and  courtesies  due  to  an 
ambassador,  and  consulted  him  almost  daily  in 
private  conferences. 

Pope  Clement  VII.  was  one  of  the  best  popes 
who  ever  graced  the  papal  throne ;  but  he  was 
also  one  of  the  most  unfortunate.  He  lived  at 
a  time  when  all  Europe  was  in  a  state  of  chaotic 
disorder.  The  Reformation,  which  had  begun 
with  Luther,  had  spread  all  over  Europe  and 
had  found  a  stronghold  in  Germany.  The  Ger- 
man Emperor,  Charles  V.,  being  at  the  same 
time  King  of  Spain  and  ruler  over  the  newly 
discovered  America — a  prince  in  whose  realms, 
as  the  saying  was,  the  sun  would  never  set  — 
wished  to  humble  Italy  and  to  press  it  down  to 
a  secondary  position  in  the  council  of  nations. 
This  made  the  position  of  the  Pope  difficult.  If 
he  should  oppose  the  Emperor's  secular  policy, 
Charles  was  likely  to  encourage  Protestantism 


io6  Messianic  Expectations. 

in  retaliation  for  the  papal  resistance ;  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  Clement  should  win  over  the  Em- 
peror to  his  plans  in  regard  to  the  suppression 
of  heresy,  he  would  be  obliged  to  make  conces- 
sions at  the  expense  of  the  Italian  prestige. 
Nothing  short  of  a  crusade  against  the  Turk ... 
could  help  the  Pope  out  of  his  dilemma.  At  a 
time  when  the  most  impossible  seemed  to  be 
possible,  when  anything  was  believed,  David's 
story  was  not  at  all  discredited  by  the  Pope ;  for 
there  was  an  opportunity  for  him  which  he  could 
not  afford  to  lose.  An  army  of  three  hundred 
thousand  soldiers  ready  to  be  sent  against  the 
Turks  was  the  very  thing  he  needed. 

Palestine  granted  to  the  Jews,  there  remained 
the  rest  of  the  vast  territory  of  the  Mohammed- 
ans to  be  divided,  for  which  purpose  a  crusade 
could  easily  be  preached.  The  Pope,  placing 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  undertaking,  would 
regain  the  lost  prestige  of  the  Roman  church, 
Protestantism  would  be  forgotten  amidst  the 
din  of  arms,  and  the  ambition  of  the  Emperor 
would  naturally  be  turned  away  from  Italy  into 
other  channels.  All  these  advantages  could  be 
obtained  for  a  few  guns,  a  few  barrels  of  gun- 
powder, and  a  little  toleration  shown  to  the 
Jews. 

If  the  Pope,  the  head  of  Christendom,  thus 
treated  a  Jew,  what  could  be  expected  of  the 
Jews  but  that  they  should  become  frantic  with 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho.       107 

joy  ?  The  greater  the  misery  which  they  had 
lately  suffered  in  Spain,  and  which  the  Mar- 
ranos  were  still  suffering  there  and  in  Portugal, 
the  more  did  they  cling  to  the  hope  of  restora- 
tion held  out  to  them,  as  it  appears,  by  a 
shrewd  adventurer.  This  again  shows  that 
the  Messianic  expectations  of  our  ancestors 
were  of  a  political  and  not  of  a  religious  nature. 
The  idea  that  the  Messiah  was  to  remove  the 
sins  of  the  world  is  a  Christian  invention,  and 
the  most  believing  of  the  Jews  never  believed 
in  that  doctrine.  Their  Mashiach  was  expected 
to  be  a  king,  who  should  restore  their  political 
independence,  and  nothing  else.  Just  at  the 
time  when  their  misery  seemed  unbearable, 
when  their  existence  was  threatened  with  total 
extinction,  they  received  the  welcome  news 
that  there  existed  a  Jewish  king,  a  descendant 
of  David  ;  that  this  king  commanded  a  large 
army  ;  that  he  was  immensely  rich ;  that  he 
was  ready  to  assert  his  influence  in  their  be- 
half ;  and  that  he  was  about  to  reconquer  Jeru- 
salem and  to  re-establish  a  Jewish  kingdom. 
No  matter  whether  the  report  was  true  or  not, 
whether  they  were  the  dupes  of  an  adventurer 
or  not,  such  were  exactly  the  hopes  which  they 
held  in  regard  to  a  Messiah.  And,  after  all,  as 
long  as  the  Pope  believed  in  the  man  and 
treated  him  with  courtesy  never  shown  a  Jew 
before,  why  should  they  not  believe  in  him? 


io8  Messianic  Expectations. 

Under  the  given  conditions  they  were  justi- 
fied in  expecting  some  grain  of  truth  in  his 
statement,  even  if  the  bulk  of  his  stories  should 
be  fictitious.  They  crowded  around  Rubeni, 
and  supplied  him  with  all  the  money  he  wanted. 
David  played  his  part  in  a  masterly  manner : 
he  kept  the  crowd  at  a  respectful  distance  from 
his  person,  showed  no  signs  of  greed  for  money, 
and  made  such  an  impression  upon  the  giver 
that  he  considered  himself  happy  when  his 
donation  was  accepted  by  David. 

No  practical  results,  however,  were  reached 
by  all  the  secret  sessions  which  he  held  with 
the  Pope  ;  and  the  latter  allowed  him  to  depart, 
when  a  letter  of  invitation  arrived  from  the 
court  of  Portugal  for  him. 

Joao  III.,  of  Portugal,  a  king  who  ruined  his 
country  by  his  greed  and  stupidity,  who  knew 
of  no  higher  policy  than  to  fill  his  purse,  no 
matter  at  whose  expense,  wished  to  introduce 
the  Inquisition  into  his  domain,  for  no  other 
reason  but  that  it  was  a  well-paying  institution. 
Portugal  was  then  as  full  of  Marranos  as  was 
the  neighboring  Spain ;  and  Joao  looked  with 
envy  across  the  boundary  lines  at  the  harvest 
which  the  Inquisition  yielded  there.  The  Pope, 
however,  notwithstanding  his  urgent  demands, 
was  not  ready  to  give  the  necessary  permit. 
While  the  Portuguese  court  and  the  Vatican 
were  in  communication,  and  both  the  court  and 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho.       109 

the  Marranos  tried  their  utmost  to  get  the 
Pope  on  their  side,  Joao  had  heard  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  Rubeni  and  of  his  errand.  He 
changed  his  policy  at  once,  and  invited  him  to 
Lisbon,  with  the  view  of  making  a  treaty  with 
him.  Rubeni,  who  apparently  must  have  been 
very  liberal  in  his  promises,  received  from  the 
king  the  assurance  of  his  aid.  Five  vessels 
loaded  with  guns  and  ammunition  were  to  be 
given  to  him  in  consideration  of  an  amount 
of  money  and  commercial  advantages  specified 
in  a  secret  clause.  During  the  time  in  which 
this  important  business  was  transacted,  David 
was  treated  by  the  king  like  a  prince ;  and 
all  the  edicts  against  the  Marranos  were  can- 
celled. 

This  unfortunate  class  of  people,  living  in 
constant  danger  of  losing  life  and  property, 
tormented  by  the  pangs  of  conscience,  sur- 
rounded by  bigotry,  fanaticism,  and  superstition, 
had  finally  lost  all  self-control.  A  great  many 
of  them  had  become  mentally  so  deranged  that 
they  would  believe  in  the  most  absurd  notions. 
When  Rubeni  appeared  at  the  court  and  was 
received  with  such  high  distinction,  thousands 
of  Spanish  Marranos  escaped  to  Portugal ;  and 
they  all  hailed  him  as  the  Messiah  who  would 
save  them  from  their  unnatural  position,  and 
restore  both  the  Jewish  nation  and  religion. 
All  eyes  were  directed  longingly  at  him,  in  the 


1 10  Messianic  Expectations. 

expectation  of  the  wonderful  events  which  were 
to  happen. 

A  young  man  of  noble  family  of  the  class 
of  the  Marranos,  a  youth  of  rare  beauty,  of 
poetical  genius,  and  of  a  commanding  power 
of  speech,  became  so  highly  impressed  with  the 
appearance  of  Rubeni,  and  the  hopes  con- 
nected with  him,  that  he  made  himself  unknow- 
ingly a  tool  in  the  hands  of  the  adventurer. 
Diego  Pirez,  born  in  the  year  1501,  was  about 
twenty-four  years  of  age  when  Rubeni  arrived 
in  Portugal.  Born  among  the  Marranos,  he 
had  received  an  excellent  education.  He  spoke 
several  languages  fluently,  and  was  not  ignorant 
in  Hebrew  literature.  He  held  the  office  of  a 
clerk  at  the  royal  court  of  justice,  and  stood  in 
great  favor  with  the  government.  Nothing  else 
was  known  of  him  before  ;  but  no  sooner  did 
Rubeni  appear  than  Diego  Pirez  had  all  kinds 
of  dreams  and  visions  in  regard  to  the  advent 
of  a  Messiah  and  the  future  of  the  Marranos. 
He  approached  the  adventurer  in  order  to  find 
out  directly  of  him  whether  his  plans  would 
correspond  with  his  visions.  Rubeni,  as  usual, 
remained  cold,  and  did  not  betray  his  plans. 
Pirez  thought  he  should  win  his  confidence  by 
his  open  return  to  Judaism  ;  an  act  which  was 
punishable  with  death.  He  performed  the 
Abrahamitic  rite  on  himself ;  and  the  loss  of 
blood  which  followed  caused  a  dangerous  fever, 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  MolcJw.       1 1 1 

during  which  Pirez  had  again  frightful  visions, 
all  relating  to  the  appearance  of  a  Messiah  who 
was  to  save  the  Marranos.  He  even  thought 
he  heard  the  voice  of  an  angel,  who  appointed 
him  for  that  mission.  .  From  that  time  he 
changed  his  name,  and  called  himself  Solomon 
Molcho,  which  is  about  the  same  as  King  Solo- 
mon. Having  thrown  aside  the  mask  of  Chris- 
tianity, he  could  no  longer  remain  at  home. 
He  escaped  and  fled  to  Palestine.  The  young 
enthusiastic  Marrano  who  had  had  the  courage 
to  return  openly  to  Judaism  created  quite  a  stir 
in  the  Orient.  He  gave  himself  out  at  first 
as  an  ambassador  of  David  Rubeni,  but  later 
as  the  Messiah  himself ;  and  his  dreams  in 
which  he  foresaw  his  early  death,  and  that  he 
should  be  sacrificed  as  a  burnt  offering  to  God, 
were  the  constant  themes  of  his  lectures,  which 
were  listened  to  by  thousands  of. people,  and 
afterwards  (in  1529)  printed  in  Salonica.  The 
substance  of  his  addresses  was  always  the  same, 
namely,  that  at  the  end  of  the  year  5300  of  the 
world,  or  1540  of  the  new  era,  the  Messiah 
would  appear ;  that  Rome  would  be  destroyed, 
and  Jerusalem  rebuilt.  His  fame  spread,  and 
all  kinds  of  fantastic  hopes  were  connected  with 
his  name. 

In  the  meantime,  King  Joao  III.  again 
changed  his  policy.  Without  giving  any  cause, 
he  notified  Rubeni  to  quit  Portugal  within  two 


112  Messianic  Expectations. 

months,  and  began  to  urge  the  papal  court  to 
establish  an  inquisitory  tribunal  in  his  king- 
dom against  the  Marranos.  Clement  hesitated. 
He  could  not  arrive  at  conclusions,  partly 
because  he  abhorred  the  crimes  committed 
by  the  Inquisition,  and  partly  because  the  sus- 
pense was  valuable  to  him,  as  both  parties 
appearing  before  him  did  not  come  with  empty 
hands. 

About  this  time,  Solomon  Molcho  arrived  in 
Ancona  with  the  intention  of  going  to  Rome  to 
convert  the  Pope  to  Judaism,  even  at  the  risk  of 
his  life.  In  Rome  he  secluded  himself  for 
thirty  days,  fasting  and  praying,  and  again  had 
visions.  He  foresaw  that  a  great  flood  would 
submerge  Rome,  and  that  Lisbon  would  be 
destroyed  by  an  earthquake.  Of  these  visions 
he  spoke  in  the  synagogues  of  Rome  every  Sab- 
bath ;  and  it  seems  that  the  Pope  himself  began 
to  believe  in  him.  The  fact  remains  that  Clem- 
ent VII.  not  only  received  him  frequently  in 
audience,  but  protected  him  against  his  enemies. 
The  flood  which  he  had  predicted  and  the  earth- 
quake of  Lisbon  occurred  in  fact ;  and  the  Pope 
no  longer  doubted  his  divine  mission.  It  is 
said  that  once  the  Pope  saved  Molcho's  life, 
when  the  Inquisition  had  taken  hold  of  him  and 
had  sentenced  him  to  be  burnt  in  public,  by 
substituting  another  criminal  for  him,  and 
secretly  aiding  him  in  his  escape. 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho.       1 1 3 

In  1531,  we  find  Molcho  in  Venice  again  in 
company  with  Rubeni,  who  dealt  with  the  city 
council  as  he  had  formerly  dealt  with  the  Pope 
and  King  Joao  III.  All  of  a  sudden  both  men 
conceived  the  adventurous  idea  of  travelling  to 
Regensburg,  where  the  Emperor  had  called  a 
diet,  in  order  to  convert  him  to  Judaism. 
Charles  granted  them  a  few  audiences,  but  soon 
imprisoned  them  and  took  them  to  Mantua, 
where  both  were  tried  on  charges  of  heresy 
brought  against  them.  Diego  Pirez  was  sen. 
tenced  to  death  upon  the  pyre.  At  the  last 
moment  a  messenger  sent  by  the  Emperor 
offered  him  his  life  if  he  would  repent  and 
return  to  the  church.  Molcho  answered  that 
he  was  pleased  to  offer  his  life  to  God  as  a 
martyr  ;  that  he  repented  one  act  only ;  namely, 
to  have  believed  in  his  own  Messiahship.  He 
died  without  a  murmur.  Rubeni,  who  could 
not  be  sentenced  as  a  heretic,  was  taken  to 
Spain,  and  died  in  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, after  the  torture  had  made  him  confess  the 
names  of  a  number  of  Marranos,'  who  were 
burned  in  consequence.  The  hopes,  however, 
which  had  been  linked  to  his  name  and  that  of 
Solomon  Molcho  did  not  die  out  for  some  time. 
Not  before  the  year  1540  had  passed  away  with- 
out a  Messiah  making  his  appearance  were  these 
hopes  relinquished. 

Although  only  a  comparatively  short  time  has 


H4  Messianic  Expectations. 

elapsed  since:  although  the  art  of  printing  must 
have  facilitated  the  establishment  of  facts : 
although  the  printed  sermons  of  Solomon 
Molcho  and  a  diary  of  Rubeni  are  still  extant, 
the  queer  career  and  still  queerer  actions  of 
these  two  adventurers  are  still  clouded  in  mys- 
tery. Their  connections  with  the  Pope,  with 
the  King  of  Portugal,  with  the  patricians  o* 
Venice,  with  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  are  his- 
torical facts ;  and  still  nothing  definite  is  known 
about  their  transactions  with  these  influential 
persons.  Their  history,  fabulous  and  romantic 
as  it  may  appear,  contains,  however,  a  few 
points  which  bear  unmistakable  evidence  to 
the  correctness  of  the  propositions  which  my 
lectures  on  Messianic  expectations  are  to  ad- 
vocate. 

First, — The  Jewish  conception  of  a  Messiah, 
as  long  as  such  hopes  were  indulged  in,  has 
always  been  the  same ;  namely,  that  of  a  man 
who  would  restore  the  national  existence.  The 
theories  of  hereditary  sin,  of  eternal  damnation, 
of  redemption  through  the  Messiah,  have  always 
been  rejected  as  absurd  by  the  Jews,  even  at 
the  time  of  the  Inquisition,  when  the  wildest 
confusion  of  ideas  was  prevalent  on  account  of 
the  Marranos,  who  had  inhaled  the  doctrines  of 
both  Christianity  and  Judaism. 

Second,  —  Messianic  expectations,  at  the  time 
of  Rubeni  and  Molcho,  show  already  the  traces 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  MolcJio.       \  1 5 

/ 
of  old  age.    They  had  already  lost  their  strength 

and  their  fervor.  Hopes  were  indulged  in,  but 
no  practical  steps  were  taken  to  realize  them. 
These  hopes,  even,  would  have  vanished  had 
they  not  been  kept  alive  by  the  persecution 
from  which  our  ancestors  were  suffering  at  the 
time.  If  Messianic  expectations  had  not  been 
on  the  decline,  they  would  have  borne  better 
fruit  at  that  peculiar  historical  period  than  the 
fantastic  exploits  of  Rubeni  and  Molcho.  The 
whole  excitement  did  not  last  longer  than  about 
eight  years,  and  was  confined  to  Spain  and  Italy 
only ;  and,  after  all,  it  affected  the  Christians 
more  than  the  Jews.  A  pope,  a  king,  and  the 
aristocracy  of  a  renowned  city  seem  to  have 
been  the  dupes  of  two  Jewish  adventurers, 
while  the  Jews  only  lost  a  small  sum  of 
money. 

Third,  —  It  appears  to  me  that  the  Messianic 
character  which  was  attributed  to  both  men  was 
an  invention  of  their  friends,  a  blind  to  cover 
the  true  inwardness  of  their  mission.  It  seems 
to  me  that  they  were  nothing  but  the  secret 
agents  of  the  Marranos  to  work  at  the  courts  of 
Rome,  Lisbon,  and  Regensburg  in  their  favor ; 
and  that  when  both  had  lost  their  lives  in  their 
dangerous  mission,  legend  took  hold  of  them, 
and  surrounded  them  with  a  wreath  of  marvel- 
lous deeds.  It  seems  that  they  worked  con- 
scientiously for  their  cause,  and  not  for  private 


1 1 6  Messianic  Expectations. 

gain.  There  is  no  trace  to  be  found  that  they 
lived  extravagantly,  or  that  they  amassed 
money.  They  drew  their  necessary  expenses, 
which  were  little  ;  and  the  rest  of  the  money 
intrusted  to  them  was  consumed  in  bribing  the 
corrupt  courtiers  whose  influence  was  needed 
and  could  not  be  obtained  otherwise. 

These  points  evidently  prove  that  Messianic 
expectations  must  have  been  the  temporary 
hope  of  a  merely  political  character,  which  had 
practically  died  out  with  the  occasion  which  had 
produced  them  ;  namely,  with  the  loss  of  the 
Jewish  nationality.  They  furthermore  prove 
that  these  expectations  never  took  the  form  of 
a  doctrine,  and  never  supported  the  structure  of 
Judaism.  They  were  fanciful  decorations  on  the 
outside  of  the  building,  but  were  never  essen- 
tial to  our  religion. 

Another  cause  which  perpetuated  their  life 
for  some  time  was  the  Kabbalah,  a  disease 
which  was  caused  by  the  unhealthy  atmosphere 
in  which  Judaism  was  compelled  to  live,  a  cancer 
which  had  slowly  but  steadily  spread  over  its 
whole  body,  and  almost  caused  its  death.  At 
the  very  time  when  all  Europe  shook  off  the 
torpor  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  began  to  inhale 
the  morning  breeze  of  the  new  day,  Judaism 
was  stretched  on  the  sick-bed  with  that  disease  ; 
and  if  we  have  not  yet  gained  a  more  respected 
position  in  the  communities  in  which  we  live,  it 


David  Rubeni  and  Solomon  Molcho.       117 

is  due  to  the  delay  in  our  advancement  caused 
by  that  sickness. 

As  the  Kabbalah  has  also  produced  a  would- 
be  Messiah,  the  last  one  of  repute,  I  shall  intro- 
duce his  history  by  a  lecture  on  the  Kabbalah, 
its  origin,  growth,  and  evil  consequences. 


VIII. 
THE  KABBALAH. 

'HERE  has  never  been  an  individual  or  a 
nation  which  has  been  altogether  original 
in  its  thoughts  or  actions.  We  call  the 
productions  of  an  author  original  in  so  far 
as  the  same  subject  has  never  been  treated 
before  with  the  same  strength  and  in  the  same 
words  ;  but  if  you  enter  upon  a  close  scrutiny, 
you  will  find  that  the  greater  part  of  them  is 
the  reflex  of  ideas  current  at  the  time  of  the 
writer,  and  that  even  the  few  for  which  origi- 
nality is  claimed  are  the  product  of  a  combina- 
tion of  inherited  sentiment,  study,  and  special 
accidental  impressions.  The  secret  of  the 
success  of  an  able  writer  and  speaker  is  not 
to  be  found  in  his  originality,  but  in  just  the 
opposite  ;  in  that  he  gives  expression  to  the 
ideas  of  his  readers  or  hearers. 

We  constantly  give  and  take.  No  matter 
how  secluded  a  person  lives,  his  thoughts 
will  be  influenced  by  his  surroundings :  no 
matter  how  deeply  a  nation  is  sunk  in  barbar- 
ism, it  cannot  withstand  the  influence  of  civ- 
118 


The  Kabbalah.  119 

ilization    brought    upon    it    by    other   nations 
with  which  it  happens  to  come  in  contact. 

There  is  perhaps  no  nation  on  earth  which  has 
come  in  contact  with  a  greater  number  of 
others,  and  has  stood  in  a  closer  relation  to 
them,  than  the  Jewish  nation.  It  has  mingled 
with  Egyptians  and  Phoenicians,  with  Assyrians, 
Babylonians,  and  Persians,  with  the  Greeks  and 
the  Romans,  and  with  all  the  modern  nations.  Its 
record  dates  from  the  time  when  the  Pyramids 
were  built,  and  can  be  traced  through  all  ages 
to  this  very  day.  It  is  therefore  no  wonder  at 
all  that  its  originality  was  affected  by  its  sur- 
roundings, that  it  has  worked  into  its  system 
the  popular  notions  of  all  the  peoples  which  I 
have  enumerated,  and  that  it  was  influenced 
by  the  current  ideas  and  philosophies  of 
the  different  ages.  It  is  an  undeniable  fact 
that  though  we  have  given,  we  have  also 
received ;  that  though  we  have  influenced 
others,  we  have  been  influenced  by  them  in  turn. 
It  is  a  grave  mistake  on  the  part  of  our  friends 
to  think  that  Judaism  has  remained  intact  and 
unchanged  from  the  time  of  its  origin  until 
now,  and  that  the  Israelites  of  to-day  hold  the 
same  views  as  did  their  great-grandparents 
two  thousand  years  ago.  A  great  many  ideas, 
good  ones  as  well  as  bad  ones,  have  found 
their  way  into  Judaism,  which  were  by  no 
means  essential  to  its  spirit.  After  they  had 


1 20  Messianic  Expectations. 

been  absorbed,  they  hardened  within  its  system, 
and  the  historian  of  our  days,  who  examines  the 
phenomenon,  wonders  now  how  such  a  strange 
matter  could  have  ever  grown  so  deeply  and 
firmly  into  the  living  wood  that  it  is  almost 
impossible  to  remove  it  without  harming  the 
tree  itself. 

The  religion  of  the  Babylonians  and  that  of 
the  Persians  exerted  their  influence  upon  Juda- 
ism, as  well  as  the  Egyptian  cults,  which  stood 
godfather  at  its  cradle.  By  degrees  the  theo- 
ries held  by  the  Parsees  of  God  and  the  world 
crept  into  Judaism ;  and  the  loom  of  time 
worked  them  into  the  Jewish  tissue.  From 
the  time  of  the  intercourse  with  these  nations 
we  find  that  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  super- 
natural beings,  in  angels  of  light  and  darkness, 
springs  up  in  our  religion  ;  that  it  develops, 
and  that  by  the  side  of  the  commandment, 
"Thou  shalt  not  make  any  representation  of  any 
being,  be  it  in  heaven  or  on  earth,"  the  most 
fanciful  descriptions  of  the  heavenly  regions  are 
indulged  in.  At  the  very  time  when  the  Baby- 
lonian Talmud  was  near  its  completion,  a 
mystical  book  appeared,  the  Sefer  Jezirah,  the 
book  of  Creation,  in  which  not  only  the  different 
classes  of  angels  are  named  and  their  daily 
duties  minutely  recorded,  but  in  which  the 
writer  does  not  shrink  from  describing  the 
throne  of  God,  and  from  capping  the  climax  by 


The  Kabbalah.  121 

giving  a  measurement  of  his  limbs.  The  length 
of  his  beard,  for  instance,  is  given  at  ten  thou- 
sand five  hundred  Persian  miles.  Such  notions 
were  surely  not  Jewish,  but  still  they  were  held 
by  our  ancestors.  There  is  not  one  philosophi- 
cal system  known  which  has  not  left  some 
traces  in  the  structure  of  Judaism  ;  and  while 
at  times  the  rational  system  of  Aristotle  pre- 
dominated, there  were  times  when  mysticism 
ruled  supreme. 

Maimonides,  the  exponent  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, the  greatest  philosopher  of  his  time,  had 
returned  to  the  Aristotelian  system,  and  at- 
tempted to  interpret  the  Bible  in  a  rational 
manner.  He  was  the  outspoken  enemy  of  mys- 
ticism ;  he  denied  the  existence  of  miracles,  and 
endeavored  to  explain  the  Mosaic  laws  and  rites 
from  a  scientific  point  of  view.  This  rational- 
ism created  a  storm  of  indignation  in  orthodox 
circles,  which  broke  forth  with  still  greater  vio- 
lence after  his  death.  It  raged  for  two  hundred 
years,  and  became  finally  the  cause  of  a  reaction, 
of  a  return  to  mysticism,  and  of  the  origin  of  the 
Kabbalah. 

The  burning  question  of  those  days  was.  ex- 
actly the  same  one  which  is  debated  to-day, 
namely,  the  divine  origin  of  the  Bible.  Starting 
from  the  belief  that  God  himself  was  its  author, 
the  question  arose  how  its  discrepancies  could 
be  accounted  for.  How  could  a  divine  author 


1 22  Messianic  Expectations. 

admit  into  his  book  passages  like  that  of  Lot 
and  his  daughters,  that  of  Judah  and  Thamar, 
and  others  ?  What  was  the  use  of  a  legislation 
which  in  course  of  time  had  become  imprac- 
ticable ?  There  remained  only  two  courses : 
either  to  say  that  the  Bible  was  the  work  of 
human  authorship,  or  to  find  a  key  by  which  it 
could  be  read  in  a  different  way.  Maimonides 
would  have  chosen  the  first  way,  had  he  lived 
longer.  The  second  way  seemed  to  most  the 
best ;  and,  as  necessity  is  the  mother  of  inven- 
tion, the  key  was  produced.  A  secret  meaning 
was  attributed  to  every  word  of  the  Bible,  which 
could  be  obtained  by  changing  the  letters  and 
substituting  such  others  for  them  as  would  rep- 
resent the  same  numerical  value.  It  must  be 
understood  that  every  Hebrew  letter  represents 
a  number.  The  first  ten  letters  of  the  alphabet 
stand  for  the  numbers  from  one  to  ten ;  the 
next  ten  stand  for  the  tenths  ;  and  so  on.  Each 
word  has,  therefore,  a  numerical  value.  Sup- 
posing, now,  that  the  letters  of  a  word  would 
give  the  number  120;  the  Kabbalist  could  sub- 
stitute any  other  word  for  it,  provided  its  letters 
would  also  count  up  120.  This  system  opened 
the  door  to  an  unbounded  mysticism.  The 
rationalism  of  Maimonides  was  silenced  at 
once :  the  Bible  now  became,  in  the  hands  of  a 
clever  Kabbalist,  the  proof  of  everything,  no 
matter  how  absurd ;  and  an  entirely  new  reli- 


The  Kabbalah.  123 

gious  system  began  building  upon  this  hypoth- 
esis. 

The  world,  imperfect  as  it  is,  was  said  not  to 
have  been  created  by  God,  the  Perfect,  the  Infi- 
nite, who  was  called  in  the  language  of  the 
Kabbalah  the  "  En  Sof ; "  but  that  between  this 
world  and  the  Supreme  Being  there  were  ten 
circles,  or  "  Sefiroth,"  of  which  God,  the  En 
Sof,  formed  the  centre.  The  substance  of  the 
first  circle  which  had  emanated  from  God  was 
similar  to  him,  but  not  exactly  like  him  :  the 
second  was  the  effusion  of  the  first,  similar,  but 
not  like  it :  the  third  of  the  second,  and  so 
on,  each  Sefirah  growing  farther  from  perfec- 
tion. The  visible  world  was  the  effusion  of  the 
last  circle  ;  and  by  means  of  these  circles,  which 
were  flowing  into  one  another  like  the  colors 
of  a  rainbow,  man  stood  in  connection  with 
God,  and  God  with  man.  The  En  Sof  was 
infinite  ;  but  the  Sefiroth  were  finite.  The  En 
Sof  had  no  bodily  form  ;  but  the  Sefiroth  had  a 
spiritual  and  bodily  form,  and  through  their 
medium  God  could  appear  in  a  visible  form, 
and  reveal  himself  to  man. 

The  human  soul  was  a  citizen  of  this  higher 
world,  and  stood  in  direct  connection  with  the 
Sefiroth.  It  could,  therefore,  exert  an  influence 
upon  them,  and  through  them  upon  the  highest 
divinity.  A  noble  soul  could  force  the  En  Sof 
to  send  his  blessings  through  the  channels  oi 


124  Messianic  Expectations. 

the  Sefiroth  upon  this  world;  while  a  wicked 
soul  could  hinder  the  divine  activity.  Good 
actions  would  facilitate,  ignoble  actions  inter- 
rupt, the  divine  effusions.  Every  rite  and  every 
ceremony  was  of  mystical  importance :  they 
were  the  instruments  to  influence  the  divinity. 
The  prescribed  daily  prayers  were  positively 
effective  provided  they  were  directed  to  the 
proper  Sen  rah.  All  prayers  were  to  be  ad- 
dressed to  them,  and  not  directly  to  the  En  Sof. 
The  formula  of  the  prayer  was  alone  of  impor- 
tance, not  its  meaning  and  sense.  By  means  of 
the  prayer  the  Kabbalist  could  work  miracles. 

All  souls  were  said  to  have  been  created  from 
the  beginning  as  the  residents  of  the  Sefiroth. 
Every  soul  was  preordained  to  a  union  with  a 
body,  and  for  a  life  in  this  world.  In  this 
earthly  career  it  was  to  prove  that  in  spite  of  its 
union  with  a  body,  it  could  preserve  its  celestial 
purity.  If  a  soul  was  successful  in  this  life,  it 
ascended  forever  into  the  higher  spheres ;  but 
if  it  succumbed  to  earthly  temptations,  it  had  to 
return  again  and  again  to  this  world  until  finally 
it  had  passed  its  earthly  life  in  perfect  purity. 
Most  of  the  souls,  however,  were  forgetful  of 
their  heavenly  origin ;  and  thus  it  happened 
that  most  of  the  souls  on  earth  were  old  ones 
who  had  lived  there  before.  New  ones  were 
rarely  sent  to  the  world,  because,  as  the  number 
of  souls  on  earth  was  limited,  no  new  soul  could 


The  Kabbalah.  125 

be  started  until  an  old  one  had  returned  forever 
to  a  higher  sphere.  The  Kabbalist  could  tell 
at  sight  whether  a  person  was  a  new  soul  or  an 
old  one.  Not  until  all  souls  had  passed  their 
earthly  existence,  and  had  returned  to  their 
heavenly  abode,  would  the  end  of  days  be 
reached,  when  all  souls  and  all  the  Sefiroth 
would  again  be  absorbed  and  drawn  in  by  the 
En  Sof.  The  soul  of  the  Messiah  would  be  the 
last  one  to  appear ;  and  his  advent  could,  there- 
fore, be  accelerated  or  retarded  by  the  goodness 
or  depravity  of  mankind.  In  all  these  fanciful 
doctrines  we  can  easily  discern,  not  only  the 
traces  of  Persian  mysticism,  of  Buddhism,  and 
of  Mohammedanism,  but  also  the  prevailing 
Christian  theories  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  power 
of  prayer  when  directed  to  a  mediator  who 
stood  between  God  and  man,  and  the  pos- 
sibility of  an  incarnation  by  means  of  the 
Sefiroth.  All  these  doctrines  were  secretly 
transmitted  from  teacher  to  pupil.  A  Rabbi 
Isaac,  called  "  the  blind,"  Rabbi  Asriel,  and 
Rabbi  Jehuda  ben  Jakar,  and  Nachmanides, 
the  most  inveterate  antagonist  of  Maimonides, 
are  named  as  the  first  teachers  of  the  new 
science. 

This  science,  however,  could  not  at  first  gain 
a  firm  foothold  ;  for  it  lacked  authority.  People 
would  ask,  How  do  the  Kabbalists  know  all 
these  things  ?  How  do  they  know  that  their 


1 26  Messianic  Expectations. 

key  is  the  right  one  ?     But  this  deficiency  also 
was  soon  to  be  supplied. 

Rabbi  Mose  ben  Shem  Tob  de  Leon,  born  at 
Lyons  in  1250,  was  a  man  of  inventive  genius. 
He  eked  out  a  miserable  life  by  copying  books. 
He  was  a  spendthrift,  and  always  pinched  for 
money,  at  the  same  time  unscrupulous  as  to  the 
means  of  getting  it.  He  had  learned  a  little 
of  everything,  but  had  never  acquired  thorough- 
ness in  any  study.  He  had  studied  the  Kabba- 
lah too ;  that  is,  the  few  doctrines  which  then 
were  taught.  When  he  found  that  an  appetite 
for  this  study  was  springing  up  amongst  his  con- 
temporaries, he  wrote  several  treatises  on  that 
subject.  He  failed,  however,  to  win  glory  or 
money  from  the  literary  productions  which  ap- 
peared under  his  own  name.  The  idea  once 
struck  him  that  a  Kabbalistic  book  which  should 
appear  under  the  name  of  a  recognized  author- 
ity might  have  a  ready  sale.  As  author  for  such 
a  book,  he  selected  Simon  ben  Jochai,  a  rabbi 
of  great  renown,  who  had  lived  in  Palestine  in 
the  second  century,  and  of  whose  ascetic  life  a 
number  of  legends  had  survived.  He  was  said 
to  have  lived  for  nineteen  years  as  a  hermit  in  u 
cave,  to  have  fasted  six  days  in  a  week  out  of  the 
seven,  and  to  have  received  direct  revelations 
from  God.  The  teachings  of  this  rabbi,  if  writ- 
ten in  the  Chaldean  language,  the  language  of 
the  Talmud,  would  not  be  doubted.  Mose  de 


The  Kabbalah.  127 

Leon  went  to  work,  and  one  day  he  surprised 
his  friends  with  a  copy  from  a  manuscript  which, 
as  he  said,  had  been  discovered  by  Nachmanides 
in  the  grave  of  Simon  ben  Jochai.  He  had  sent 
it  to  his  son,  but  a  storm  had  carried  it  to 
Spain,  and  from  there  into  his  (Mose's)  posses- 
sion. 

The  book  was  entitled  the  "  Sohar,"  which 
means  splendor,  and  was  divided  into  sev- 
eral chapters,  having  no  connection  with  one 
another.  It  was  filled  with  the  most  fantastic 
and  absurd  narratives.  Angels  and  devils,  Par- 
adise and  Gehenna,  played  a  prominent  part 
therein.  The  souls  were  traced  through  all 
their  wanderings  ;  and  their  mystic*  relations  to 
the  Sefiroth  and  the  En  Sof  were  considerably 
dwelt  upon.  All  this  knowledge  of  the  spirit- 
ual world  had  been  obtained  by  revelation. 
Simon  ben  Jochai,  the  alleged  author  of  the 
book,  had  learned  these  secrets  from  God  him- 
self. God  himself  had  instructed  him  how  to 
use  the  key  to  the  Bible,  and  how  to  read  it 
correctly.  By  means  of  his  ascetic  life,  he  had 
penetrated  Sefirah  after  Sefirah,  until  he  had 
been  in  direct  communication  with  the  En  Sof. 

The  Messiah  was  not  ignored  ;  he  was  to 
appear  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, and  by  this  statement  the  clever  counter- 
feiter betrayed  himself.  He  ceased  to  be  the 
anointed  king  who  was  to  restore  the  political 


128  Messianic  Expectations. 

status  quo  ante ;  and  he  became  in  the  Sohar  a 
mystical  being,  the  incarnation  of  the  En  Sof, 
the  exact  image  of  the  Messiah  taught  by  Chris- 
tianity. And  still  such  theories  were  called 
Jewish.  The  demand  for  the  book  increased  ; 
but  Mose  de  Leon  did  not  reap  the  fruits  of  his 
labor.  He  died.  The  original  manuscript  was 
now  demanded  by  the  influential  men  of  that 
time,  but  could  not  be  found.  Mose's  widow 
insisted  upon  it  that  her  husband  had  written 
the  whole  book  himself.  The  Sohar  became, 
nevertheless,  an  authority.  Its  origin  from 
Simon  ben  Jochai  was  never  questioned. 
Soon  the  new  revelation  overgrew  Talmud 
and  Bible,  and  the  night  of  mysticism  lulled 
the  Jews  into  a  magnetic  slumber. 

We  may  well  ask  how  it  was  possible  that 
the  common  sense  for  which  the  Israelites  have 
ever  been  noted  could  have  become  so  thor- 
oughly suppressed  as  to  let  them  accept  such 
an  aberration  of  the  mind ;  a  book  which  bears 
the  traces  of  fraud  right  on  its  face. 

Well,  it  is  the  most  impossible  which  is  gener- 
ally sure  to  happen.  Our  imagination  is  quicker 
reached  than  our  reason.  Mysticism  always  has 
had  a  secret  charm  over  mankind  ;  and  even 
to-day,  in  our  enlightened  age,  there  are  thou- 
sands who,  in  spite  of  all  exposures,  believe  in 
Spiritualism,  in  clairvoyance,  and  other  mystic 
absurdities.  At  that  time  there  were  added 


The  Kabbalah.  129 

some  other  reasons,  of  still  greater  force.  First 
of  all,  the  proud  spirit  of  our  ancestors  had 
been  broken  by  constant  persecution.  A  man 
whose  life  and  property  are  constantly  endan- 
gered loses  naturally  the  force  of  reason,  and 
grows  superstitious.  Soldiers,  sailors,  and  high- 
way robbers,  are  as  a  rule  the  most  supersti- 
tious people  on  earth.  The  law  which  com- 
pelled our  ancestors  to  wear  a  peculiarly  shaped 
hat,  or  a  yellow  spot  on  their  outside  garment, 
and  thus  had  made  them  a  constant  target  for 
ridicule,  had  destroyed  their  self-respect,  and 
had  made  them  low-spirited  and  dull.  Further- 
more, their  neighbors  were  as  superstitious  as 
they  were.  The  spirit  of  mysticism  at  that 
time  held  the  whole  world  under  its  sway. 
The  Crusades  had  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
western  barbarians  to  a  civilization  in  the  east 
of  which  they  had  never  had  a  conception. 
Whatever  they  saw  of  adroit  mechanism  in 
Constantinople  or  eastern  cities  they  took  for 
the  secret  work  of  evil  spirits.  For  instance, 
they  could  not  understand  why  some  people 
looked  up  to  the  stars  and  made  charts  of  the 
night  sky.  They  believed  that  astronomers 
received  information  from  the  stars  in  regard 
to  the  future  of  man.  Astronomy  was  changed 
into  astrology,  in  which  even  men  like  Wallen- 
stein  believed.  Geometry,  not  known  before  in 
western  Europe,  puzzled  the  uncultured  barba- 


130  Messianic  Expectations. 

rian ;  and  he  thought  a  secret  power  was  at- 
tached to  the  triangles,  squares,  and  circles,  of 
the  mathematician.  The  medical  art,  w^iich 
was  not  known  in  western  countries,  but  had 
its  seat  in  the  east,  remained  a  conundrum  to 
the  Crusaders.  Every  botanist  and  every  phy- 
sician seemed  to  them  to  be  in  secret  communi- 
cation with  superhuman  forces.  The  belief 
spread  that  it  was  possible  to  change  base 
metals  into  gold  ;  and  the  cradle  of  our  chem- 
istry was  alchemy.  All  these  absurdities  were, 
however,  the  fertilizers  which  stimulated  the 
barren  ground,  and  brought  forth  all  our  mod- 
ern sciences ;  but  the  scientist  of  that  age  had 
to  work  and  to  experiment  in  secrecy.  The 
church  felt  instinctively  the  danger  which 
would  arise  for  it  from  these  studies,  and  stig- 
matized science  as  the  black  art,  as  the  machi- 
nation of  evil  spirits.  It  persecuted  and  ostra- 
cized as  sorcerers  and  enchanters  all  those  who 
would  indulge  in  such  studies,  and  compelled 
them  thus  to  carry  on  their  researches  in  secret, 
in  the  darkness  of  the  night,  which  aroused 
still  more  the  superstition  of  the  populace. 

It  is,  therefore,  not  at  all  surprising  that  the 
same  symptoms  made  themselves  visible  on  the 
Jewish  body,  as  it  suffered  from  the  same  sick- 
ness ;  the  difference  was  that  these  absurdities 
were  worked  out  in  a  peculiar  Jewish  manner 
by  our  ancestors.  Numerous  commentaries  on 


The  Kabbalah.  \  3 1 

the  Sohar  were  produced ;  all  the  secret  arts, 
as  necromancy,  astrology,  and  alchemy,  were 
drawn  into  the  Kabbalah ;  and  an  abundance 
of  impostors  arose,  who  claimed  to  be  in  posses- 
sion of  King  Solomon's  ring,  and  to  possess 
power  over  the  spiritual  world.  These  imposi- 
tions would  have  done  little  harm  had  not  the 
study  of  the  Kabbalah  overtowered  finally  the 
study  of  Talmud  and  Bible,  destroyed  reason, 
changed  the  whole  religious  system,  created 
and  introduced  new  ceremonies,  which  were 
palmed  off  as  truly  Jewish  ;  so  that  finally 
Judaism  could  no  longer  be  identified  in  the 
form  in  which  it  then  appeared. 

Our  present  orthodoxy  is  the  last  remnant 
of  the  Kabbalistic  age.  What  our  orthodox 
brethren  defend  as  Judaism  is  Kabbalism. 
Many  of  the  prescribed  prayers,  the  number 
of  which  was  not  to  be  abrogated,  are  of  Kab- 
balistic origin  :  most  of  the  ceremonies  still  in 
use  among  them  were  produced  in  the  age  of 
the  Kabbalah.  The  New  Year's  day  and  the 
day  of  Atonement,  formerly  days  of  joy,  re- 
ceived a  gloomy  character,  which  still  prevails. 
The  Kaddish  prayer,  which  reform  has  not  yet 
been  strong  enough  to  abolish,  but  which  it  has 
at  least  modernized  and  rationalized,  is  a  relic 
of  that  age,  and  was  supposed  to  hold  a  mystic 
power  over  the  souls  of  the  departed  members 
of  the  family.  The  words  of  the  Kaddish  prayer, 


132  Messianic  Expectations. 

which  in  their  simple  form  contain  a  glorifica- 
tion of  God,  were  supposed  to  contain  an  en- 
tirely different  meaning  when  read  with  the 
key  of  which  the  Kabbalist  was  the  owner. 
The  burial  rites,  with  all  their  superstitious 
practices,  still  in  use  among  our  orthodox  breth- 
ren, are  an  offshoot  from  the  Kabbalah.  Even 
I  remember  the  time  when  Kabbalistic  amulets 
were  still  in  use  and  were  placed  over  the 
cradle  of  a  new-born  child  to  prevent  evil  spir- 
its from  harming  it.  And  all  these  supersti- 
tious rites  were  and  are  still  called  Judaism  ! 

The  Kabbalah  clung  by  necessity  to  Messi- 
anic expectations ;  but  the  most  fantastic  and 
absurd  hopes  were  connected  with  his  appear- 
ance ;  and  if  there  are  still  Jews  living  who 
conscientiously  believe  in  the  coming  of  a 
Messiah,  they  believe  in  the  Kabbalistic  Mes- 
siah, and  not  in  the  Messiah  originally  expected 
at  the  time  of  their  political  depression. 

It  is  now  about  one  hundred  years  since  the 
reform  movement  began  (with  Moses  Men- 
delssohn) ;  and  its  blows  were  directed  first  of 
all  against  the  Kabbalah.  From  the  time  that 
Israel  was  relieved  of  that  incubus,  it  began  to 
live  again  and  to  reconquer  its  lost  position  in 
the  world.  All  the  present  difficulties  which 
we  experience  in  the  strained  relations  between 
orthodoxy  and  reform  are  due  to  the  rapidity  of 
our  progress  during  the  last  hundred  years. 


The  Kabbalah.  133 

We  had  overslept  ourselves,  and  had  to  make 
up  for  lost  time.  Our  present  reform  does  not 
intend  to  harm  Judaism,  for  it  loves  it  ;  but  it 
is  compelled  to  blast  the  last  remnants  of  Kab- 
balism,  which  by  the  ignorant  masses  are  taken 
for  Judaism. 

The  Kabbalah  has  produced  a  Messiah  such 
as  could  be  expected  of  it ;  a  man  who  did  more 
harm  to  Judaism  than  any  previous  Messiah. 
He  was  as  great  an  impostor  as  the  Kabbalah 
was  an  imposture ;  and  still,  men  like  Baruch 
Spinoza,  the  greatest  philosopher  of  his  age,  did 
not  know  what  to  make  of  him. 

Sabbatai  Zwi,  the  last  Jewish  Messiah  on 
record,  filled  for  the  last  time  the  hearts  of  his 
contemporaries  with  the  delusive  hopes  of 
national  restoration,  and  afterwards  alienated 
thousands  of  his  followers  from  their  religion. 
His  activity  falls  in  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century ;  and,  although  his  history  gives 
evidence  that  he  was  a  mixture  of  fraud,  mys- 
ticism, and  self-delusion,  it  is  as  romantic  as 
that  of  any  of  his  predecessors,  and  gives  a  true 
picture  of  the  Kabbalistic  swindle  by  which  his 
time  was  imposed  upon. 


IX. 

SABBATAI  ZWI. 

'HE  struggle  between  darkness  and  light, 
as  witnessed  at  the  dawn  of  every  day,  is 
a  sight  well  worth  seeing.  It  seems  as  if 
two  giants  were  wrestling  with  each  other 
for  the  supremacy  over  the  world.  While  the 
eastern  horizon  assumes  a  pale  roseate  hue, 
deep  darkness  still  hovers  above  the  western 
sky ;  and  it  appears  as  if  armies  of  clouds  were 
despatched  from  there  toward  the  east  to  sup- 
press the  rising  light.  Then  a  mixture  of  light 
and  darkness  spreads  for  some  time  over  the 
world,  in  which  all  objects  take  on  the  most 
fanciful  appearance.  Finally,  the  clouds  recoil 
from  before  the  arrows  which  the  rising  sun 
sends  from  his  radiant  chariot  against  them, 
objects  become  discernible  in  their  true  form, 
and  the  world  hails  the  victorious  day. 

The  seventeenth  century  is  in  more  than  one 
respect  comparable  to  that  struggle  between 
darkness  and  light  as  experienced  in  nature  at 
the  dawn  of  every  day.  The  night  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  begins  to  withdraw  from  before  the 
'34 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  135 

light  of  the  new  era,  but  not  without  a  struggle. 
That  peculiar  mixture  of  light  and  darkness 
which  we  call  twilight  was  then  hovering  over 
the  intellectual  world.  In  its  dim  light,  all 
facts  appeared  distorted,  though  their  true  forms 
could  already  be  distinguished.  The  press,  the 
influence  of  which  was  then  already  felt,  was 
yet  in  its  infancy.  It  was  fed  with  nourishment 
that  had  grown  stale  by  the  time  it  reached  it. 
A  statement,  fallacious  or  untrue,  because  it 
could  not  be  rectified  at  once,  grew  more  harm- 
ful when  spread  by  the  press  than  it  would 
ever  have  been  before.  Journalism,  that  branch 
of  the  press  which  to-day  is  called  the  press, 
had  scarcely  seen  the  light  of  the  world :  it 
existed  in  an  embryonic  form,  lacking  both 
hands  and  feet  —  telegraphs  and  railroads. 
While  the  names  of  Descartes  and  Spinoza, 
of  Kepler,  Galileo,  and  Copernicus  appeared  as 
the  messengers  of  the  new  day  on  the  one  side 
of  the  horizon,  the  deep  night  of  mysticism 
was  still  beclouding  the  world ;  and  both  Jews 
and  Gentiles  were  still  held  in  a  deep  slumber 
by  its  magnetic  influence. 

In  one  of  my  previous  lectures,  I  have  already 
stated  that  Christianity  in  its  earlier  days  had 
been  expecting  the  return  of  Jesus ;  and  that 
this  notion  had  been  the  cause  of  similar  Mes- 
sianic expectations  among  the  Jews.  These 
hopes,  long  forgotten  among  Christians,  were 


136  Messianic  Expectations. 

all  at  once  called  into  life  again  in  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  The  Thirty  Years' 
War,  then  raging  in  Germany,  the  rise  of  Prot- 
estantism, the  inroads  which  the  Turks  were 
making  upon  Siebenbiirgen,  the  discoveries 
which  were  so  surprising  to  the  unintelligent  ; 
all  these  causes  combined  revived  these  old, 
long-forgotten  hopes.  The  Christians,  both 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  all  at  once  believed 
that  the  world  would  come  to  an  end,  and  that 
Christ  would  re-appear  at  that  auspicious  mo- 
ment. From  some  obsolete  prophecies  it  was 
figured  out  that  the  fearful  catastrophe  was  to 
occur  in  the  year  1666. 

The  Jews  were  soon  infected  with  the  same 
mania  ;  and  the  Kabbalists  now  discovered  that 
the  passage  in  the  Sohar  which  had  predicted 
the  appearance  of  the  Messiah  in  the  beginning 
of  the  thirteenth  century  had  been  misinter- 
preted, and  that  the  proper  time  for  his  appear- 
ance was  about  the  same  as  that  of  their  Chris- 
tian neighbors,  namely,  the  year  1648.  Then 
their  Messiah  would  come,  riding  upon  a  lion, 
reconquer  Palestine  in  a  miraculous  manner 
and  without  arms,  and  establish  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  By  that  time,  the  Kabbalists  said, 
the  last  lot  of  souls  would  have  arrived  on  this 
sublunary  world,  and  with  it  the  soul  of  the 
Messiah;  and' every  thing  would  then  be  in  readi- 
ness for  the  absorption  by  the  En  Sof. 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  137 

From  that  time  dates  the  pernicious  custom, 
which  is  still  prevalent  among  the  Jews  of 
Poland  and  Russia,  of  marrying  off  their  chil- 
dren at  the  early  ages  of  from  ten  to  fourteen 
years.  It  was  introduced  in  order  to  exhaust 
the  quicker  the  supply  of  unborn  souls,  and 
thus  to  accelerate  the  arrival  of  the  Messiah. 
In  Smyrna  eight  hundred  such  juvenile  couples 
were  once  married  on  one  day.  When  Rabbi 
Manasse  stood  before  Oliver  Cromwell  and 
pleaded  the  cause  of  his  brethren,  asking  per? 
mission  for  them  to  immigrate  into  England 
and  to  settle  upon  her  soil,  one  of  his  arguments 
was  that,  after  all,  their  sojourn  would  be  of  a 
short  duration,  as  the  time  was  near  at  hand 
when  their  Messiah  would  appear.  This  shows 
that  even  practical  men  of  the  stamp  of  Rabbi 
Manasse  were  infected  with  the  craze  and  dared 
to  speak  of  it  as  a  matter  of  course  to  the  Pro- 
tector of  England,  who  in  turn  received  this 
reference  to  the  current  and  popular  belief  in 
the  same  spirit  in  which  it  was  given. 

During  the  war  between  the  Turks  and  the 
city  of  Venice,  the  commercial  relations  of  that 
city  had  become  so  unsafe  that  large  English 
and  Dutch  firms  removed  from  there  and  estab- 
lished branch  offices  in  Smyrna.  Mordachai 
Zwi,  a  Jew  of  Spanish  descent,  who  had  re- 
moved to  the  same  place  from  the  southern  part 
of  Greece,  opened  a  commission  business  there 


138  Messianic  Expectations. 

representing  the  interest  of  several  English 
houses.  His  strict  honesty  and  his  clever  man- 
agement -won  for  him  the  confidence  of  the 
firms  for  which  he  acted,  and  made  him  a  rich 
man.  On  the  Qth  of  the  month  Ab,  the  memo- 
rial day  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  in  the 
year  1626,  a  boy  was  born  to  him,  whom  he 
called  Sabbatai.  The  child  grew  up  to  be  a 
handsome  young  man,  who,  both  by  his  comeli- 
ness and  by  his  intellectual  qualities,  gained  the 
sympathies  of  all.  He  was  a  remarkable  boy. 
He  would  withdraw  into  solitudes  where  he 
could  give  full  swing  to  his  imagination.  He 
never  mingled  with  his  fellows,  nor  would  he 
ever  join  in  their  games.  For  a  short  time  he 
studied  Bible  and  Talmud  ;  but  soon  he  left 
these  studies  and  was  initiated  into  the  myste- 
ries of  the  Kabbalah.  The  ascetic  life  which 
was  demanded  of  a  Kabbalist  suited  him  ex- 
tremely. He  would  pray  and  fast  and  meditate 
and  bathe  at  nights  with  such  a  promptness  and 
minuteness  that  before  he  had  reached  his 
twentieth  year  he  had  already  become  the 
master  of  a  small  circle  of  disciples.  He  had, 
however,  one  peculiarity  which  distinguished 
him  from  other  Kabbalists  and  surrounded  him 
at  the  same  time  with  a  still  brighter  halo  of 
holiness.  He  was  totally  indifferent  to  the 
other  sex.  Although  he  had  married,  according 
to  Kabbalistic  usage,  at  an  early  age,  and  his 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  139 

wife  was  very  pretty,  he  never  lived  with  her  as 
man  and  wife ;  so  that  she  asked  for  a  divorce, 
to  which  he  raised  no  objection.  With  the 
same  coldness  he  afterwards  treated  his  second 
wife.  His  father  worshipped  him,  and  ascribed 
his  success  in  business  to  the  influence  which 
his  son  was  able  to  exert  upon  the  En  Sof. 
This  made  Sabbatai  conceited  ;  and  as  a  Mes- 
siah was  expected  about  that  time  by  all,  it  oc- 
curred to  him  that  he  and  no  other  was  that 
distinguished  personage.  On  his  twenty-second 
birthday,  in  the  year  1648,  he  made  himself 
known  to  a  select  circle  of  friends  and  disciples 
as  the  long-expected  Messiah,  by  pronouncing 
the  four-lettered  name  of  God  as  it  is  written. 
The  Kabbalah  had  predicted  that  the  Messiah 
alone  would  dare  to  pronounce  this  name  in  the 
same  manner  as  it  was  pronounced  before  by 
the  high  priest.  When  the  rabbies  of  Smyrna 
heard  of  it,  they  grew  indignant ;  and  their  col- 
lege, the  Beth-Din,  excommunicated  him  and 
his  followers.  The  fact  was  that  they  loved  to 
dream  and  to  talk  about  Kabbalistic  nonsense, 
to  hope  and  to  pray  for  a  Messiah,  but  were  not 
ready  to  face  the  creations  of  their  own  imagi- 
nation when  they  appeared  before  them  in  broad 
daylight.  After  a  quarrel  which  lasted  for  sev- 
eral years,  he  and  his  disciples  were  exiled  from 
Smyrna. 

The  prompt  action  of  the  rabbinical  college 


140  Messianic  Expectations. 

Ought  to  have  nipped  all  his  Messianic  aspira- 
tions in  the  bud ;  but  it  had  just  the  opposite 
effect :  it  stiffened  his  backbone.  The  concep- 
tion of  a  suffering  Messiah,  borne  and  tenderly 
nourished  by  Christianity,  had  crept  by  that  time 
into  Jewish  thought :  he  considered  his  persecu- 
tion to  be  an  essential  part  of  his  Messianic  mis- 
sion ;  and  being  well  supplied  with  funds  by  his 
father,  he  scorned  the  interdict  of  the  rabbini- 
cal synod  of  Smyrna;  and  his  illusions  grew 
with  every  new  day. 

It  is  not  exactly  known  where  he  stopped 
and  what  he  did  during  the  next  fifteen  years. 
A  few  traits  only  have  survived.  On  his  travels 
he  once  met  a  wandering  preacher  who  at  the 
same  time  was  a  copyist  of  note.  His  name 
was  Abraham  Jachini.  From  him  he  received 
a  piece  of  old  parchment,  upon  which  the  follow- 
ing inscription  could  be  seen,  in  old-fashioned 
Hebrew  characters  :  "  I,  Abraham,  was  impris- 
oned in  a  cave  for  forty  years,  when  I  heard  a 
.voice  saying,  In  the  year  5386  of  the  world 
(that  is,  1626)  a  son  shall  be  born  whose  name 
shall  be  Sabbatai.  He  shall  humble  the 
dragon :  he  is  the  true  Messiah :  and  he  shall 
wage  war  without  arms." 

It  is  not  known  whether  this  piece  of  pen- 
manship had  been  made  to  order,  or  whether 
Jachini,  who  had  heard  of  Sabbatai's  assump- 
tion, had  written  it  for  the  sake  of  mystifying 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  141 

the  mystifier.  Sabbatai  accepted  the  document 
as  genuine,  preserved  it,  and  proved  by  it  his  mis- 
sion. In  the  year  1653  we  find  him  in  Salonica 
surrounded  by  a  host  of  admirers.  Here  he 
prepared  a  peculiar  farce.  He  celebrated  his 
wedding  with  a  scroll  of  the  law  such  as  you 
can  see  in  any  Jewish  synagogue.  On  this  oc- 
casion he  proclaimed  himself  as  the  Messiah,  — 
and,  mark  me  well,  as  the  son  of  the  En  Sof, 
—  who  by  order  of  his  father  was  to  marry  the 
law,  the  daughter  of  heaven.  This  scene,  car- 
ried out  with  theatrical  pomp,  so  enraged  the 
sober  part  of  the  Jewish  population  of  Salonica 
that  he  was  driven  ignominiously  from  that 
place. 

He  then  travelled  through  Greece ;  but  the 
congregations,  which  had  heard  of  his  ex- 
communication and  his  vagaries,  would  not 
allow  him  to  stay  with  them.  Strange  as  it 
may  appear,  all  these  difficulties  tended  to  in- 
crease his  presumption  and  to  raise  his  cour- 
age. From  there  he  went  to  Egypt.  In  the 
capital,  Cairo,  there  lived  at  that  time  a 
wealthy  Israelite.  He  held  the  highest  office 
in  the  land ;  for  he  had  leased  the  revenues 
and  taxes  of  all  Egypt.  Raphael  Joseph 
Chelibi  was  as  charitable  as  he  was  rich,  and 
as  credulous  and  superstitious  in  matters  of 
religion  as  he  was  shrewd  in  business  affairs. 
Fifty  Kabbalists  were  supported  by  him  year 


142  Messianic  Expectations. 

in  and  year  out ;  and  whosoever  was  in  want 
appealed  to  him.  He  was  the  Rothschild  of 
his  time.  While  he  was  transacting  an  im- 
mense business,  he  fasted  and  prayed  and 
chastised  himself  with  a  lash  made  of  wire,  all 
for  the  sake  of  hastening  the  advent  of  the 
Messiah  by  his  ascetic  life.  Sabbatai  initiated 
him  into  his  secrets,  and  made  a  faithful  friend 
of  him.  In  1663  he  went  to  Jerusalem ;  as  it 
seems  without  any  reason,  and  for  no  purpose 
whatsoever.  As  the  year  1666  was  approach- 
ing, he  probably  believed  that  his  presence 
might  be  needed  in  the  Holy  City  at  that  event- 
ful time,  and  that  perhaps  some  miracle  would 
occur  in  his  behalf  upon  the  sacred  soil  of  Pales- 
tine. But  though  he  observed  the  most  rigor- 
ous asceticism,  though  he  bathed  in  the  Jordan 
river,  and  visited  the  graves  of  the  patriarchs, 
no  miracle  occurred.  His  circle  of  admirers 
even  did  not  widen  to  any  extent ;  when  all  of 
a  sudden  an  accident  happened  which  made 
him  famous  at  once.  An  oppressive  tax  had 
been  imposed  by  the  Pasha  upon  the  Jews  of 
Palestine,  which  they  were  unable  to  pay. 
They  were  threatened  with  extermination  if 
the  money  should  not  be  paid  at  the  appointed 
time.  Sabbatai  offered  his  services  as  a  mes- 
senger to  the  charitable  Raphael  Joseph  in 
Cairo.  His  embassy,  as  could  be  expected, 
was  crowned  with  success ;  for  the  charitable 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  143 

gentleman  subscribed  the  amount  which  was 
needed ;  which,  however,  was  attributed  to  the 
influence  of  Sabbatai,  the  Messiah,  upon  Ra- 
phael. But  he  obtained  even  another  oppor- 
tunity to  prove  his  Messiahship. 

In  far-off  Poland  a  whole  Jewish  colony  had 
been  butchered  years  before  by  the  Cossacks. 
One  little  girl  only  had  been  saved,  by  accident. 
She  had  been  found  the  next  day  by  a  benevo- 
lent person  half  starved  and  almost  frozen  to 
death,  who  gave  her  up  to  the  sisters  of  a  neigh- 
boring nunnery.  Here  she  grew  up  to  be  a 
maiden  of  rare  beauty  ;  and  though  she  had 
been  instructed  in  the  tenets  of  the  Christian 
religion,  she  still  remained,  so  she  said,  a  Jewess 
at  heart.  One  night  this  girl  was  found  by 
some  Israelites  almost  naked  on  their  burial 
place.  She  claimed  that  the  spirit  of  her 
father  had  taken  her  in  the  stillness  of  the 
night  and  carried  her  through  the  air  from  the 
cloister  to  this  place.  He  had  told  her  that 
she  was  to  become  the  bride  of  the  Messiah. 
To  the  astonished  Jewish  women  she  even 
showed  the  finger-marks  which  her  father's 
spirit  had  left  on  her  body.  The  Jews,  being 
afraid  to  get  into  trouble  for  her  sake,  did  not 
investigate  the  matter,  but  sent  her  to  Amster- 
dam, where,  she  said,  she  had  a  brother.  She 
remained  for  a  few  years  in  Amsterdam ;  then 
went  to  Frankfort-on-the-Main,  and  later  to 


144  Messianic  Expectations. 

Livorno,  always  claiming  that  she  was  to  be  .the 
bride  of  the  Messiah.  She  did  not,  however, 
lead  such  a  life  as  would  be  becoming  to  such  a 
distinguished  person  ;  for  in  all  these  cities  she 
bore  an  ill  name.  Whenever  the  inconsistency 
of  her  behaviour  was  shown  to  her,  she  would 
say  that  because  she  was  to  become  the  wife  of 
the  Messiah  her  irregularities  had  been  allowed 
to  her  by  divine  revelation.  The  story  of  her 
adventures  had  reached  Cairo ;  and  Sabbatai  at 
once  corroborated  her  story,  claiming  that  he 
had  been  waiting  for  her  appearance  as  she  had 
for  his.  He  sent  for  her,  and  in  the  hduse  of 
the  generous  Raphael  their  nuptials  were  con- 
summated in  gorgeous  style.  This  marriage 
made  him  at  once  a  Messiah,  and  he  justified  his 
queer  action  by  referring  to  the  prophet  Hosea, 
who  likewise  had  been  ordered  by  God  to  marry 
a  lewd,  woman.  His  fame  spread,  and  his 
glory  was  still  increased  by  an  addition  of  a  few 
satellites  who  were  pleased  to  shine  by  his  side. 
A  Kabbalist  called  Nathan  Ghazati  assumed 
the  role  of  the  prophet  Elijah,  who  was  to  be 
the  forerunner  of  the  Messiah,  and  two  other 
Kabbalists,  Sabbatai  Raphael  and  Mathatias 
Bloch,  travelled  for  him,  preached  in  his  name, 
and  proclaimed  him  as  the  true  Messiah.  About 
this  time  Sabbatai  began  to  bring  system  into 
his  enterprise.  He  kept  a  regular  court,  in 
which  Sarah  figured  as  queen.  He  withdrew 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  145 

himself  from  the  gaze  of  the  populace,  and 
appeared  only  on  high  festive  occasions  in 
public.  He  employed  a  private  secretary,  who 
sent  official  documents  in  the  name  of  the 
Messiah  to  all  Jewish  congregations  in  Europe, 
Asia,  and  Africa.  He  now  returned  to  his 
native  city,  entered  it  triumphantly ;  and  on 
the  New  Year's  day,  1665,  he  proclaimed  him- 
self publicly  in  the  synagogue  of  Smyrna  by 
the  sound  of  the  Shofar  as  the  long-expected 
Messiah.  The  enthusiasm  soon  developed  into 
a  craze.  Men,  women,  and  children  began  to 
prophesy  :  miracles  occurred  every  day  and  all 
over  the  country,  and  the  mania  spread  like  wild- 
fire. In  Holland,  England,  Germany,  and  Poland, 
wherever  a  Jew  lived,  whom  the  glad  tidings  of 
the  appearance  of  the  Messiah  reached,  the 
wildest  hopes  arose :  business  was  neglected ; 
estates  sold  out  ;  and  delegates  loaded  with 
money  were  despatched  to  the  court  of  the 
Messiah.  The  greater  the  number  of  these 
legations  grew,  the  greater  appeared  the  dignity 
of  the  Messiah  ;  and  as  every  delegate  could 
truthfully  report  the  conflux  of  people,  and  the 
magnificence  of  the  court,  and  as  these  reports 
of  unbiassed  eye-witnesses  could  not  be  doubted, 
the  mania  spread  wider  and  wider,  and  the 
Messianic  fever  grew  more  intense.  A  banker 
in  Amsterdam  who  had  uttered  some  irreverent 
remarks  about  the  Messiah  suddenly  fell  down 


146  Messianic  Expectations. 

dead,  and  the  belief  of  the  credulous  crowd  in 
the  miraculous  and  far-reaching  power  of  the 
Messiah  could  never  be  shaken  after  this  acci- 
dent. In  England  bets  were  made  for  and 
against  him,  and  the  betting  stood  one  hundred 
to  ten  in  his  favor.  Heinrich  Oldenburg,  a 
German  scholar  of  great  renown,  did  not  know 
what  to  make  of  it,  and  predicted  a  great 
change  in  all  public  affairs.  Even  Spinoza,  the 
Pantheist,  acknowledged  the  possibility  that 
the  Divinity  might  again  have  chosen  Israel  as 
the  bearer  of  the  moral  law.  Christians  began 
to  doubt  their  own  religion.  If  Sabbatai  was 
the  true  Messiah,  as  he  then  appeared  to  be, 
what  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?  Many  Christians 
turned  Jews  in  order  to  be  on  the  safe  side  in 
1666. 

There  was  only  one  man  at  that  time  who 
remained  sober  in  the  general  delusion.  Rabbi 
Jacob  Sasportas  of  Hamburg  raised  his  voice  of 
warning,  which,  however,  was  drowned  in  the 
frantic  turmoil  of  that  peculiar  time. 

If  Sabbatai  had  been  a  man  of  some  sense,  if 
he  had  possessed  some  character  and  some 
power  of  will,  he  could  have  made  something 
out  of  the  feverish  enthusiasm  which  then  had 
taken  hold  of  everybody ;  but  he  was  no  man  of 
ability  or  of  genius,  he  was  a  self-conceited  im- 
postor. He  did  nothing ;  he  lived  in  dulcejubilo 
from  day  to  day,  waiting  for  a  miracle.  He 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  147 

divided  the  world  among  his  followers.  To  one 
of  his  friends  he  gave  Poland,  to  another  Ger- 
many, and  Raphael  Joseph  Chelibi  received 
Egypt  for  his  share.  So  firm  was  the  belief  of 
his  deluded  followers  in  him  that  they  would  not 
sell  their  shares  for  enormous  sums  of  money, 
which,  in  fact,  were  offered  to  them.  He  pre- 
tended to  know  the  souls  which  inhabited  their 
bodies.  One  of  his  friends  was  the  soul  of 
King  Solomon,  another  that  of  King  Joas.  He 
furthermore  changed  the  Jewish  holidays ;  he 
made  the  ninth  of  Ab,  his  birthday,  a  day  of 
rejoicing,  and  did  away  with  the  day  of  Atone- 
ment. He  gave  himself  out  finally  as  the  incar- 
nation of  the  En  Sof ;  that  is,  in  plain  words, 
he  said  he  was  God  himself. 

The  swindle  had  now  lasted  long  enough  in 
Smyrna ;  and  the  Sultan,  or  rather  his  vizier, 
Achmed  Kopriti,  thought  it  high  time  to  see  to 
it.  Sabbatai  was  summoned  to  appear  before 
the  Sultan,  in  Constantinople.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1666,  he  set  sail  for  that  city.  After 
a  stormy  voyage,  he  landed  near  the  Golden 
Horn,  and  was  immediately  imprisoned  by  the 
Turkish  authorities.  When  questioned  about 
his  Messianic  pretensions,  the  coward  denied 
them,  and  said  he  was  merely  a  Jewish  rabbi 
who  had  been  delegated  to  collect  alms  for 
Jerusalem.  Kopriti,  who  at  that  time  was  in 
need  of  Jewish  money  for  the  wars  which  he 


148  Messianic  Expectations. 

was  waging  with  several  European  powers,  and 
who  had  the  good  sense  of  not  making  a  martyr 
of  a  man  who  was  a  harmless  impostor,  gave 
him  the  small  castle  of  Abydos  as  his  place  of 
residence,  where  he  was  to  be  kept  as  a  prisoner 
of  state,  under  guard  of  a  Turkish  officer.  The 
castle  now  became  a  second  Mecca.  From  all 
parts  of  Europe  pilgrims  arrived ;  and  a  rain  of 
gold  was  showered  over  the  whole  neighbor- 
hood. The  leniency  with  which  the  Sultan 
treated  him  was  interpreted  by  the  admirers  of 
Sabbatai  to  mean  that  he  was  powerless  to  harm 
the  Messiah,  who  had  dared  to  approach  him 
unarmed  and  unaided  by  an  army.  The  belief 
spread  that  the  Sultan  would  soon  abdicate  in 
Sabbatai's  favor;  and  it  almost  seems  as  if 
Sabbatai  himself  had  believed  in  his  super- 
natural power.  His  impudence,  however,  led  to 
his  early  downfall.  Ambassadors  had  come 
from  the  interior  of  Poland  to  ascertain  the 
truth  of  the  Messianic  rumor.  They  told  him 
that  in  their  own  country  a  man  had  predicted 
the  coming  of  a  Messiah,  but  had  named  another 
person.  Sabbatai  haughtily  ordered  these  dele- 
gates to  send  that  man  to  him.  Nehemia 
Cohen,  the  Polish  prophet,  obeyed  the  order, 
and  appeared  before  him.  After  a  long  conver- 
sation which  he  held  with  the  Messiah,  he 
denounced  him  as  an  impostor.  Sabbatai's  fol- 
lowers, to  avenge  the  insult,  attempted  to  mur- 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  149 

der  Nehemia,  who,  however,  escaped  from  their 
hands,  went  to  Constantinople,  turned  Moham- 
medan, betrayed  to  the  Sultan  the  secrets  of  the 
Messiah,  and  gave  him  advice  how  to  put  down 
the  excitement  at  once  without  making  a  mar- 
tyr of  the  swindler.  Then  he  escaped  from 
Constantinople,  returned  to  Poland,  became 
again  a  conscientious  Jew,  and  vanished  from 
the  public  as  suddenly  as  he  had  appeared. 

The  Sultan,  acting  on  the  advice  of  Nehemia, 
demanded  of  Sabbatai  a  token  of  his  Messiah- 
ship.  He  would  shoot  three  bullets  at  him  at 
close  range.  If  he  should  remain  unhurt,  he 
would  acknowledge  him  as  the  Messiah  ;  if  not, 
he  should  be  killed  at  once,  if  the  bullets  had 
not  yet  finished  him. 

Sabbatai,  as  could  be  expected,  most  respect- 
fully declined  the  honor  of  being  used  as  a 
target  for  the  royal  rifle-practice,  and  instead 
turned  Mohammedan.  He  took  the  name  of 
Mehmed  Effendi,  and  received  a  good  salaried 
office  at  the  court  of  the  Sultan  in  exchange. 
The  Jews  throughout  the  Ottoman  Empire  were 
punished  with  a  heavy  taxation ;  and  Sabbatai 
was  used  as  a  tool  to  convert  them  to  the  reli- 
gion of  Mohammed.  When,  after  some  years,  he 
was  found  out  to  be  rather  lax  in  his  devotion 
to  his  new  religion,  he  was  banished  to  a  far-off 
village,  where  he  died  unnoticed  and  in  obscu- 
rity, in  the  year  1676. 


150  Messianic  Expectations. 

But  the  mania  of  which  he  had  been  the  ex- 
ponent and  the  cause  did  not  die  as  soon.  His 
admirers  could  not  believe,  and  would  not  be- 
lieve, that  the  Messiah  had  betrayed  them. 
They  announced  the  dangerous  doctrine  that  it 
was  allowable  to  change  the  form  of  religion  ; 
and  thousands  of  Jews,  who  had  lost  their  prop- 
erty during  the  mania,  and  were  now  ridiculed 
into  the  bargain,  after  the  bubble  had  burst, 
turned  Christians  or  Mohammedans.  Others 
were  still  expecting  the  return  of  Sabbatai ; 
they  still  clung  to  the  Kabbalistic  nonsense, 
which,  however,  had  now  lost  forever  its  former 
strength. 

After  this  Messianic  failure,  Messianic  hopes 
fell  to  the  freezing-point.  They  were  upheld 
theoretically,  they  found  expression  in  prayers, 
they  were  uttered  mechanically  with  the  lips  ; 
but  they  were  discarded  practically,  and  found 
no  longer  an  echo  in  the  hearts  of  our  ances- 
tors. 

This  era  of  mysticism  was  the  last  struggle 
between  darkness  and  light.  The  sun  of  reason 
rose  higher  and  higher,  and  all  these  spectres 
vanished  from  before  it.  Kabbalism,  too,  had 
to  go.  Mendelssohn  and  his  contemporaries 
destroyed  it  with  their  logic.  Even  Christianity 
changed  its  front.  The  American  and  French 
Revolutions  gave  freedom  to  the  Jews,  and 
offered  them  full  citizenship,  which  so  long  had 


Sabbatai  Zwi.  151 

been  denied  to  them ;  and  with  this  offer,  not 
only  their  homesickness,  —  their  yearning  after 
a  land  of  their  own,  —  vanished,  but  also  all 
Messianic  hopes  passed  quietly  away. 

At  the  very  same  moment  when  the  old  bell- 
man's grandson  shouted  up  to  the  belfry,  "  Ring, 
ring,  grandpa  !  Oh,  ring  for  liberty  !  "  and  when 
the  old  state-house  bell  of  Philadelphia  spread 
with  its  metal  tongue  the  news  that  the  United 
States  had  declared  their  independence,  the 
Messianic  idea  heaved  its  last  sigh.  At  that 
auspicious  moment  its  soul  passed  away,  and 
what  was  left  of  it  was  a  lifeless  corpse,  which 
has  for  some  time  lain  in  state,  but  which  now 
is  buried  for  good. 


X. 

CONCLUSION. 

'HE  human  mind  is  the  manifestation  of 
God  in  man.  It  is  as  infinite  as  is  the 
source  from  which  it  sprang.  Though 
chained  to  a  body  of  clay,  it  rises  above 
space  and  extends  beyond  time.  Time  and 
space,  the  limitations  of  the  body,  cannot  im- 
prison the  mind.  Carried  by  the  wings  of 
imagination,  we  can  roam  not  only  through  all 
the  periods  of  past  history  but  also  through  all 
the  ages  which  are  still  to  come.  In  an  instant 
we  can  travel  thousands  of  miles  ;  and  with- 
out experiencing  any  unpleasant  sensation  we 
can  change  our  residence  from  the  frigid  north 
pole  to  the  torrid  equator. 

The  moments  when  our  mind,  escaping 
from  the  prison-cell  of  the  body,  roams  through 
the  infinitudes  of  time  and  space  are  the 
happiest  in  its  earthly  existence :  they  are 
marred  only  by  the  thought  that  it  must  soon 
return  into  the  cage,  and  exhaust  itself  again  in 
its  daily  work,  in  the  treadmill  of  reality. 
'52 


Conclusion.  153 

In  a  series  of  these  mental  excursions  we  have 
followed  the  trail  which  an  idea,  the  Messianic 
idea,  has  left  upon  earth  from  the  time  of  its 
inception  to  that  of  its  demise. 

Let  us  now  draw  the  conclusions,  now  that 
all  the  evidence  has  been  brought  in. 

We  have  found,  first  of  all,  that  the  Messianic 
expectations  of  the  Israelites  assumed  shape 
not  merely  once,  but  several  times,  and  in 
different  historical  periods ;  a  fact  which  is 
not  known  to  the  public  in  general.  Four  or 
five  men,  from  out  a  large  company,  have 
gained  renown  as  Messiahs :  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
Bar  Kochba,  Rubeni,  Molcho,  and  Sabbatai 
Zwi.  Their  careers  varied  in  particulars,  but 
there  is  an  astonishing  resemblance  to  be  found 
in  the  main  features  of  their  lives.  The  early 
history  of  all  of  them  is  shrouded  in  darkness. 
Like  the  gods  in  Greek  mythology,  they 
step  forth  suddenly  out  of  the  mist  of  a  cloud. 
They  appear,  and  nobody  knows  whence  they 
come.  After  a  life  of  short  duration  they  all 
disappear  in  a  similar  manner.  With  the 
exception  of  the  last  one,  none  of  them  died  a 
natural  death.  Jesus  died  despairingly  on  the 
cross  ;  Bar  Kochba  heroically  on  the  battle- 
field ;  Molcho  was  roasted  alive  ;  Rubeni  died 
in  a  dungeon  ;  and  Sabbatai  Zwi  died  ignomini- 
ously  in  exile.  None  of  them  reached  an  ad- 
vanced age.  Sabbatai,  the  oldest  of  them,  died 


1 54  Messianic  Expectations. 

at  the  age  of  forty-one  years  ;  Solomon  Molcho, 
the  youngest,  at  thirty-one.  Jesus  is  said  to 
have  died  at  the  age  of  thirty-three  years.  Bar 
Kochba's  age  cannot  be  ascertained  ;  but  he 
must  have  died  a  young  man.  None  of  them, 
with  the  exception  of  Sabbatai,  was  married, 
and  none  of  them  left  children. 

Neither  was  any  one  of  them  a  creative  genius.. 
They  never  dominated  their  time :  on  the  con- 
trary, they  were  carried  away  with  the  current. 
They  never  moved  the  masses;  they  rode  on 
the  crest  of  the  popular  wave.  They  were 
merely  the  supply  to  a  public  demand.  Their 
Messianic  assumptions,  sincere  or  hypocritical, 
became  possible  only  on  account  of  a  popular 
hope  in  the  appearance  of  such  a  person.  None 
of  them  appeared  at  a  time  of  national  pros- 
perity ;  they  all  without  exception  stepped  upon 
the  stage  in  times  of  calamity.  They  could 
grow  only  upon  ground  fertilized  by  misery. 
Whenever  the  national  wretchedness  had  be- 
come unbearable,  whenever  the  spirit  of  the 
people  had  become  so  depressed  that  they 
despaired  of  themselves,  the  hope  sprang  up 
that  help  must  come  from  outside,  from  above  : 
that  a  man  must  appear  who  would  improve 
their  condition.  But  at  such  times  of  calamity 
the  human  judgment  becomes  biassed,  and  the 
reasoning  powers  lose  their  normal  strength. 
A  drowning  man  will  cling  to  a  straw :  so  a 


Conclusion.  155 

nation  in  despair  will  cling  to  the  most  childish 
hopes. 

None  of  the  Messiahs  ever  improved  the 
state  of  affairs :  on  the  contrary,  they  all  left 
the  nation  in  a  still  greater  misery  than  they  had 
found  it.  This,  too,  is  a  cause  why  so  very  little 
is  known  of  any  of  them.  Had  they  lived  in 
times  of  prosperity,  when  their  actions  could 
have  been  judged  in  calmness ;  had  they  been 
able  to  improve  the  condition  of  their  friends, 
morally  or  materially,  we  should  have  heard 
much  more  of  them.  The  facts  would  have 
been  sifted  ;  and  we  should  have  received  them 
in  an  authentic  form.  But  the  hardship  of  their 
times  was  so  great  that  nobody  thought  of  fixing 
dates  or  of  establishing  a  historical  fame  for 
them  ;  and  after  the  clouds  had  passed  away  it 
was  too  late  to  collect  the  material  and  to  clear 
the  truth  from  fiction. 

The  Messianic  idea  is  the  child  of  Judaism 
thus  far  only,  that  during  the  time  when  our 
ancestors  formed  a  small  nation  and  their  politi- 
cal existence  was  threatened  with  extinction  by 
mighty  oppressors,  they  hoped  that  a  man  would 
appear  among  them  who  would  liberate  them 
from  the  yoke  of  the  foreigner  and  restore 
their  national  independence.  After  the  defeat 
of  Bar  Kochba,  when  the  last  glimmer  of  that 
hope  was  extinguished,  the  child  naturally  died ; 
but  Christianity  the  daughter,  be  it  to  console 


156  Messianic  Expectations. 

her  mourning  mother  or  be  it  for  a  more  selfish 
reason,  exchanged  the  dead  body  for  that  of 
another  child,  to  which  she  herself  had  given 
birth.  This  grandchild,  sickly  as  it  was,  was  by 
mistake  nourished  by  its  grandmother  thereafter 
until  now  this  child  died  too.  All  Messianic 
expectations  which  were  indulged  in  by  the 
Jews  after  Bar  Kochba  were  un-Jewish,  and 
were  excusable  only  on  the  plea  of  homesick- 
ness, from  which  our  ancestors  suffered  for  sev- 
enteen hundred  years,  owing  to  the  inexcusable 
treatment  which  they  received  from  the  hands 
of  their  prejudiced  neighbors. 

I  can  understand  Messianic  vagaries  of  a 
political  character,  I  can  understand  that  a 
nation  oppressed  by  a  mighty  foe,  and  unable  to 
break  the  yoke  by  its  own  efforts,  experiences  a 
certain  consolation  in  the  hope  that  some  one 
will  come  and  liberate  it ;  but  after  a  people 
has  lost  its  national  existence,  after  its  children 
have  been  scattered  all  over  the  earth,  and  have 
lived  as  citizens  of  other  countries,  for  almost 
two  thousand  years,  it  is  absurd  even  to  think 
of  a  national  restoration.  I  fail  to  see  the  ben- 
efit which  the  Jews  would  derive  from  the  re- 
establishment  of  a  Jewish  commonwealth.  The 
mere  attempt  to  realize  such  fantastic  hopes 
would  be  followed  by  evil  consequences.  Pal- 
estine, to  the  possession  of  which  we  are  said 
to  be  entitled,  is  not  as  large  as  Massachusetts  : 


Conclusion.  157 

it  could  hold  two  or  three  millions  of  inhabitants. 
What,  now,  would  become  of  the  seven  millions 
of  Jews  which  could  not  find  room  therein  ? 
Furthermore,  in  what  respect  would  our  con- 
dition be  improved  ?  Could  a  Messiah  uphold 
our  civil  rights  better  than  President  Cleveland 
did  in  his  first  message  ?  Behold  the  dependent 
position  of  the  small  Danubian  countries ; 
behold  how  these  princes  are  mere  puppets  in 
the  hands  of  their  stronger  neighbors,  and 
how  the  resources  of  these  countries  are  squan- 
dered in  wars  which  will  never  benefit  them ; 
behold  these  conditions,  which  would  be  our 
own,  and  then  compare  them  with  our  standing 
as  free  citizens  of  this  free  republic.  Do  we 
not  share  the  legislative  power  with  our  fellow- 
citizens  ?  Do  we  not  hold  the  ballot  in  our 
hands  ?  Do  not  Israelites  hold  offices  in  the 
municipal  and  national  government  ?  Are  not 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  granted 
to  us  as  well  as  to  any  other  citizens  of  this 
country  ? 

It  is  told  of  Julius  Caesar  that  he  once  dis- 
played his  ambition  by  saying  he  had  rather  be 
the  first  magistrate  in  a  small  village  of  Gaul 
than  the  second  in  rank  in  Rome.  I  say,  and 
every  intelligent  American  Israelite  will  support 
me,  that  we  would  rather  be  plain  citizens  of  the 
United  States  of  America  than  the  leading  states- 
men of  a  Jewish  commonwealth  in  Palestine. 


158  Messianic  Expectations. 

Two  important  points,  however,  yet  remain 
to  be  answered.  One  is  generally  brought  for- 
ward by  our  Christian  friends  ;  the  other  by 
our  co-religionists. 

Our  Christian  friends  claim  that  we  are  mis- 
taken in  tracing  the  Messianic  expectations  of 
the  Jewish  nation  to  a  political  basis.  Although 
they  concede  that  at  the  time  of  Jesus  the 
Israelites  may  have  expected  a  politician  or  a 
soldier  as  their  liberator,  they  uphold  the 
theory  that  such  a  Messiah  was  not  needed  : 
that  the  mission  of  a  Messiah  is  not  a  local 
one,  but  that  it  is  universal.  The  Jews,  they 
say,  in  their  eagerness  for  national  redemption, 
overlooked  the  fact  that  the  messenger  of  God 
had  come  to  redeem  the  whole  world. 

Now,  in  order  to  show  that  we  are  not  hasty 
in  our  conclusions,  that  we  feel  keenly  the 
gravity  of  this  question,  and  that  we  are  willing 
to  handle  it  with  all  possible  care  and  tender- 
ness, let  us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the 
Christian  sources  are  authentic :  let  us  sup- 
pose that  our  Christian  friends  of  to-day  do 
know  better  what  our  ancestors  needed  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago  than  they  did  themselves  :  let 
us  suppose  that  the  gospels  were  written  by 
Jewish  eye-witnesses,  and  were  never  tampered 
with  by  copyists ;  and  that  the  life,  the  words, 
and  the  deeds,  of  Jesus  are  correctly  repre- 
sented therein.  Let  us  furthermore  suppose 


Conclusion.  159 

that  it  was  his  mission  to  redeem  the  whole 
world  not  politically,  but  from  its  sins  and 
iniquities. 

Starting  from  this  supposition,  are  we  not 
justified  in  expecting  of  such  a  divine  mes- 
senger that  first  of  all  he  would  reveal  to  the 
world  new  laws,  better  than  the  former  ones, 
new  doctrines,  superior  to  those  to  which  the 
people  adhered  before  ?  Now,  were  the  utter- 
ances of  Jesus  new  ?  A  very  large  part  of 
what  he  is  reported  to  have  said  had  been 
said  before  him :  and  he  repeated  it.  Many 
and  many  of  his  teachings  can  be  traced  to 
previous  Jewish  sources.  What  he  taught  was 
Judaism  plain  and  unalloyed.  Not  one  para- 
graph in  his  sermon  on  the  mount  contains 
anything  that  could  have  been  new  to  his 
hearers.  He  was  not  even  a  reformer  ;  for  he 
is  reported  to  have  said  distinctly  that  he  was 
not  come  to  change  or  to  abolish  the  Mosaic 
law.  Not  one  attempt  was  made  by  him  to  es- 
tablish a  new  religion  or  to  lay  down  a  plan  for 
the  redemption  of  the  world.  Although  he 
does  not  conceal  the  traces  of  mysticism  which 
his  connection  with  the  Essenes  had  left  upon 
him,  he  lived  and  died  a  conscientious  Jew  ; 
and  none  of  his  followers  derived  from  him  the 
least  right  to  deviate  from  the  example  which 
he  had  given  to  them.  It  is  a  fact  conceded  by 
our  Christian  friends  that  he  did  not  realize  the 


160  Messianic  Expectations. 

hopes  of  his  contemporaries,  not  even  those  of 
his  disciples ;  that  he  did  not  improve  the  con- 
dition of  his  nation,  either  by  his  life  or  by  his 
death.  But  did  he  save  the  world  ?  Did  he 
remove  sin  ?  Has  humanity  become  perfect 
through  him? 

Think  of  the  barbarism  of  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
think  of  the  paganization  of  Christianity  ;  think 
of  the  atrocities  which  have  been  perpetrated 
in  his  name  ;  the  cruelties  which  have  been 
committed  for  his  glorification  ;  the  wars  which 
have  been  waged  for  the*  propagation  of  the 
religion  named  after  him.  Observe  human 
passions  still  impeding  the  path  of  virtue  :  read 
the  list  of  crimes  committed  every  day ;  and 
then  say  that  the  world  has  been  redeemed 
of  all  evils  :  speak  it  out  unblushingly,  if  you 
can,  that  sin  has  been  removed  and  that  hu- 
manity has  become  perfect  since  the  time  of 
his  death.  The  best  proof  that  the  alleged 
Messiahship  of  Jesus  was  a  failure  on  earth  is 
that  its  result,  the  predicted  redemption  of  the 
world,  has  been  removed  to  heaven,  to  spheres 
of  which  we  have  no  knowledge  whatsoever. 
Whatever  our  fate  may  be  after  death,  be  it 
immortality  or  annihilation,  it  is  in  vain  to  go 
into  any  controversy  about  it,  as  none  of  the 
disputants  know  the  least  thing  about  it.  I 
wish,  however,  with  all  my  heart,  that  the 
hopes  of  our  Christian  friends  in  regard  to  the 


Conclusion.  161 

soul-saving  qualities  of  their  faith  may  be  real- 
ized in  what  they  call  heaven,  as  completely 
they  have  so  far  been  a  failure  on  earth. 

If  mankind  has  advanced  in  knowledge,  if  the 
standard  of  morality  has  been  raised,  such  has 
not  been  the  work  of  Jesus,  nor  that  of  Chris- 
tianity alone.  Thousands  of  good  and  noble 
men  and  women,  and  all  religions  on  earth, 
from  superstitious  fetishism  to  radical  agnos- 
ticism, have  worked  together  for  that  end.  If 
we  have  progressed,  if  humanity  is  better  to-day 
than  it  ever  was  before,  if  a  better  sense  of  jus- 
tice prevails,  if  the  cruelties  of  war  have  been 
mitigated,  if  crimes  have  been  suppressed  to 
some  extent,  we  must  not  fail  to  consider  the 
enormous  influence  of  the  host  of  inventors  who 
have  discovered  the  secrets  of  nature,  and  have 
made  its  powers  the  obedient  servants  of  man. 
The  inventors  of  steam-power,  of  electricity,  of 
gaslight,  of  machinery,  of  the  printing-press, 
—  they  have  been  among  the  real  saviors  of 
humanity ;  for  they  have  removed,  though  in- 
directly, more  sins  than  the  combined  efforts 
of  all  religions  have  been  able  to  weed  out. 
They  have  stormed  and  broken  down  the  barri- 
ers of  caste  and  creed  ;  they  have  wrenched 
the  sceptre  from  the  hands  of  despots,  both 
secular  and  spiritual,  and  have  caused  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  right  of  every  individual  to 
participate  in  the  government  of  his  own  affairs. 


1 62  Messianic  Expectations. 

They  have  alleviated  the  wrongs  of  life,  so  that 
the  poor  of  to-day  is  a  wealthy  man  compared 
with  the  poor  of  the  past.  Their  rails  and 
electric  wires  have  tied  humanity  into  one 
large  community,  and  through  their  agency 
all  human  beings  have  learned  to  regard  one 
another  as  brethren,  and  to  share  the  joys 
and  woes  of  their  fellow-beings  from  pole  to 
pole. 

It  is  a  fallacy  to  regard  the  past  as  the  time 
when  people  were  better,  nobler,  happier,  than 
they  are  to-day  ;  it  is  a  mistake  to  seek  for 
ideals  only  in  the  past,  after  which  to  shape  our 
conduct  in  the  present.  Not  disregarding  filial 
devotion  which  is  due  to  a  parent,  I  claim  that 
we  are  better  and  happier  than  were  our  ances- 
tors, and  that  future  generations  will  be  still 
better  and  happier  than  we  are.  The  ideal  of 
the  present  man  ought  to  be  the  man  of  the 
future,  not  the  man  of  the  past. 

Thus  the  Messianic  idea  of  universal  redemp- 
tion, brought  forward  by  Christianity,  collapses. 
Jesus  has  not  been  the  savior  of  his  nation  ; 
and,  as  far  as  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years 
have  proven,  he  has  not  saved  the  world.  Our 
ancestors,  —  provided  they  had  known  of  him,  — 
could  not  accept  him  as  a  national  Messiah,  be- 
cause he  did  not  tally  with  their  expectations ; 
and  we  cannot  now  or  ever  accept  him  as  a  uni- 
versal Messiah,  as  the  savior  of  the  world,  be- 


Conclusion.  163 

cause  he  is  not  the  ideal  which  we  have  to-day 
of  such  a  person. 

The  other  point  raised  by  our  co-religionists, 
who,  as  it  seems,  only  for  the  sake  of  opposition, 
will  not  concede  that  the  Messianic  idea  is  dead 
and  has  been  finally  buried  with  Sir  Moses  Mon- 
tefiore,  is  of  apparently  still  greater  importance 
than  that  which  I  have  discussed  just  now. 

The  preservation  of  Israel,  they  say,  would 
be  a  waste  of  providential  care  :  the  sacrifices 
which  our  ancestors  have  made  upon  the  altar 
of  their  religion,  the  miseries  which  they  have 
patiently  endured,  the  blood  which  they  have 
spilled,  would  all  be  in  vain,  if  our  cause  should 
not  finally  triumph  ;  if  in  the  end  we  should  not 
only  regain  a  political  independence,  but  even 
become  the  aristocracy  of  the  world.  The 
whole  drama  would  close  abruptly  without  the 
grand  finale  in  which  our  patience  and  endu- 
rance should  be  rewarded. 

There  appears  to  be  some  logic  in  this  point ; 
but  appearances  frequently  deceive.  First  of 
all,  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  a  waste  of  providen- 
tial care.  There  is  no  waste  in  nature  nor  in 
the  whole  government  of  the  universe.  The 
term  "  waste "  is  applicable  only  to  human 
affairs.  The  purpose  for  which  a  being  is 
preserved  is  not  always  that  which  we  in 
our  human  blindness  expect.  We  may  call  it 
as  well  a  waste  of  providential  care  if  an  oak 


164  Messianic  Expectations. 

tree  that  had  been  growing  for  a  thousand 
years,  and  had  withstood  the  storms  of  ages,  is 
consumed  by  a  forest  fire  instead  of  being  sawed 
into  beams  and  boards,  and  used  for  building 
purposes. 

The  sacrifices  which  our  ancestors  have 
made,  and  the  miseries  which  they  have  en- 
dured, were  made  and  endured  by  them  for 
their  own  sake,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
future.  They  could  not  submit  to  the  views 
which  another  religion  wished  to  press  upon 
them  ;  and,  therefore,  they  rather  suffered  than 
yield.  We  would  do  the  same  to-day ;  and 
there  is  no  religious  sect  which  has  not  done 
the  same.  It  is  a  poor  argument  to  say  that 
we  must  be  Jews,  and  suffer  humiliations  of  all 
kinds,  merely  because  our  parents  have  been 
Jews,  or  because  our  great-grandchildren  will 
sometime  receive  the  reward  for  our  patience 
and  endurance.  We  cling  to  Judaism  because 
that  religion  suits  us  best ;  because  it  answers 
all  our  purposes.  We  transmit  this  religion  to 
our  children  not  for  the  sake  of  aiding  God  in 
the  accomplishment  of  some  purpose,  but  be- 
cause we  think  they  will  be  as  happy  in  this 
religion  as  we  have  been,  are,  and  shall  ever 
be  ;  that  they  will  become  noble  members  of 
the  human  society  by  adhering  to  its  principles. 
If  a  man  is  not  sincerely  a  Jew,  if  he  does  not 
firmly  hold  that  Judaism  rests  upon  a  solid  foun- 


Conclusion.  165 

dation,  he  commits  a  wrong  if  he  hypocritically 
instils  into  his  children  principles  which  he  does 
not  subscribe  to  himself  ;  and  if  he  should  think 
that  another  creed  than  the  one  he  has  inherited 
is  better  and  more  likely  to  make  him  or  his 
children  better  and  nobler,  he  ought  to  embrace 
it,  the  sooner  the  better. 

There  is  an  inconsistency  in  these  Messianic 
hopes.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  expected  of  the 
Messiah  to  introduce  a  government  of  peace  and 
equality,  a  time  when  all  shall  do  the  good  for 
the  sake  of  doing  good  ;  when  all  passions  shall 
be  silenced,  when  love  shall  unite  all  humanity 
in  one  great  brotherhood,  and  when  the  same 
God  shall  rule  over  a  happy  world.  On  the 
other  hand,  however,  it  is  hoped  that  there 
would  be  some  distinction  after  all;  namely, 
that  we  should  be  raised  to  the  highest  plane, 
that  our  opinions  should  prevail,  that  our  God 
should  be  the  God.  If  the  rest  should  not  be 
inclined  to  acknowledge  our  superiority,  then, 
of  course,  we  should  regret  it  exceedingly  if  we 
were  compelled  to  make  them  submissive  by 
some  sort  of  punishment.  It  may  be  a  pleasing 
play  of  our  imagination  to  dream  of  a  time  when 
we  could  speak  to  our  fellow-citizens  somewhat 
in  the  following  strain :  You  have  never  be- 
lieved that  we  were  right ;  you  have  never  been 
ready  to  grant  us  the  position  to  which  we  were 
entitled.  Now,  the  tables  are  turned ;  now,  we 


1 66  Messianic  Expectations. 

are  the  masters  :  but  we  shall  not  pay  you  in  the 
same  coin  ;  we  shall  be  satisfied  with  the  mere 
acknowledgment  of  our  superiority  over  you. 
Such  dreams  may  gratify  our  vanity  ;  but  they 
are  idle.  Those  who  expect  to  indulge  in  such 
selfish  vanities  will  be  greatly  disappointed.  If 
it  should  ever  come  to  pass  that  the  religious 
thoughts  of  mankind  became  uniform,  you  may 
rest  assured  that  at  such  a  time  none  of  the 
present  religious  systems  would  be  prevalent. 
The  religion  of  the  future  will  be  neither  spe- 
cifically Jewish  nor  Christian  nor  Mohammedan. 
It  will  be  an  entirely  new  system,  in  which  the 
immortal  parts  of  all  the  present  religions  will 
be  represented,  but  at  the  same  time  so  equally 
balanced  that  none  will  dare  to  claim  superior- 
ity. A  Messianic  period  with  one  of  the  pres- 
ent religious  systems  dominating  is  an  absurdity, 
and  a  contradiction  of  itself. 

We  may,  however,  boast,  if  boast  we  must, 
that,  as  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism  are 
the  daughters  of  Judaism,  and  their  vital  parts 
are  essentially  Jewish,  our  religion  will  thus  both 
directly  and  indirectly  help  to  shape  the  religion 
of  the  future.  We  may  furthermore  maintain,  — 
if  this  can  add  to  our  happiness,  — that  Judaism, 
on  account  of  its  flexibility  and  its  rationalism, 
will  flow  with  greater  ease  than  any  other  of  the 
present  religious  systems  into  the  religion  of  the 
future,  and  thus  become  its  mainstay. 


Conclusion.  167 

With  these  explanations  I  should  like  to  close 
my  researches;  but  I  cannot  dismiss  the  sub- 
ject without  answering  one  more  question,  which 
has  frequently  been  asked  of  late  by  my  hear- 
ers, both  Jews  and  Gentiles, — the  question, 
What  is  Judaism  ?  It  would  take  another  course, 
of  at  least  ten  lectures,  should  I  endeavor  to 
solve  this  question  otherwise  than  metaphori- 
cally. You  must,  therefore,  be  satisfied  with  a 
figurative  explanation. 

Fables  tell  of  a  bird,  of  great  beauty,  which  is 
so  rare  that  only  one  specimen  of  its  race  exists 
on  earth,  and  which  is  neither  male  nor  female. 
The  Phoenix  is  said  to  live  to  a  very  old  age ; 
but  when  he  feels  that  death  is  near,  he  lines 
his  nest  with  all  kinds  of  odorous  plants,  sets 
fire  to  it,  and  burns  himself  with  it.  Out  of 
the  ashes,  however,  rises  a  new  bird,  young, 
vigorous,  and  still  more  beautiful  than  was  his 
ancestor. 

Judaism  is  such  a  phoenix.  It  is  the  con- 
stantly changing  but  ever  living  religion  of  hu- 
manity. 

Whenever  it  feels  that  a  change  is  needed, 
that  its  body  has  outlived  its  usefulness,  it  sets 
fire  to  its  earthly  environment ;  and,  purified 
by  the  flames,  it  rises  from  the  ashes  in  a  new 
guise,  but  chanting  the  same  old  song,  — 

There  is  but  one  God,  and  all  human  beings 
are  brethren. 


1 68  Messianic  Expectations. 


NOTE. 

It  is  quite  natural  and  therefore  pardonable 
in  a  reader  of  these  ten  lectures  to  ask  the  fol- 
lowing questions  :  — 

1.  Does  the  author  represent  therein  what 
all  Israelites  think  of  the  Bible,  of  the  Messiah, 
and  of  the  hope  in  a  return  to  Palestine  ? 

2.  If  not,  does  he  voice   the  opinion   of   at 
least  a  small  number  of  Israelites  ?  or 

3.  Does  he  stand  all  alone  by  himself  and  un- 
supported by  any  of  his  brethren,  merely  ex- 
pressing   his   own   individual   views   on    these 
topics  ? 

The  author  most  decidedly  disclaims  to  speak 
in  behalf  of  all  Israelites  collectively  ;  though 
he  feels  confident  that  most  of  his  views  are 
shared  by  all  intelligent  American  Israelites. 
To  ascertain  their  number  would  be  a  rather 
difficult  task,  because  cultured  people,  as  a  rule, 
do  not  make  a  public  display  of  their  religious 
opinions. 

Supposing,  however,  that  the  number  of  his 
supporters  is  a  small  one,  that  they  form  only 
an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the  whole  Jewish 
population,  what  does  it  matter?  Does  not 
one  intelligent,  cultured  person  who  sides  with 


Note.  169 

him  more  than  outbalance  a  host  of  unintelli- 
gent, unlearned,  and  superstitious  people  who 
may  rise  in  opposition  to  his  declarations? 

As  a  proof,  merely,  that  he  does  not  stand 
entirely  alone  and  unsupported,  he  has  added 
the  following  two  lectures  to  the  previous  ten, 
from  which  the  reader  will  learn  that  not  an 
inconsiderable  number  of  rabbies,  who  are  re- 
nowned both  for  their  profound  scholarship  and 
their  high  moral  character,  and  who  officiate  in 
the  largest  and  most  celebrated  Jewish  congre- 
gations in  America,  have  recently  agreed  upon 
a  platform  of  principles  every  plank  of  which 
tallies  exactly  with  the  views  expressed  by  the 
author. 

The  two  lectures  on  "  The  Pittsburg  Confer- 
ence" will,  therefore,  prove  interesting  reading, 
and  speak  for  themselves. 


XI. 

THE  PITTSBURG  CONFERENCE:   ITS  CAUSES. 

77"  f  PON  the  urgent  solicitation  of  the  Rev. 
i@J  Dr.  Kohler,  of  New  York  city,  about  six- 
teen rabbies,  all  belonging  to  the  re- 
formed wing  of  Judaism,  assembled  four  weeks 
ago  in  Pittsburg,  Penn. ;  and  after  a  lively  de- 
bate, they  passed,  without  one  dissenting  vote, 
a  set  of  resolutions  which  they  termed  a  declara- 
tion of  principles. 

The  learned  gentlemen  had  come  to  the 
meeting  of  their  own  free  will  and  accord ;  they 
had  paid  their  own  expenses :  they  had  not 
been  sent  by  their  congregations  or  by  any 
other  body  of  Israelites  to  represent  their  views, 
and  their  utterances  were  therefore  the  utter- 
ances of  private  individuals,  who  could  claim  no 
other  authority  for  them  save  that  which  sound 
judgment,  intelligently  and  sincerely  exercised, 
always  carries  with  it. 

The  proceedings  of  the  meeting  were  spread 
with  electric  rapidity  all  over  the  country ;  and 
the  principles  declared  by  them  are  now  running 
the  gauntlet  of  public  criticism. 
170 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  171 

It  matters  little  in  what  proportion  the  number 
of  rabbies  who  assembled  in  Pittsburg  stands  to 
the  number  of  Jewish  congregations  in  America : 
it  matters  little  whether  these  gentlemen  voice 
the  sentiment  of  the  members  of  their  several 
congregations :  it  matters  little  whether  they  are 
old  or  young,  or  whether  they  come  from  the 
East  or  the  West ;  their  declaration  of  principles 
is  entitled  to  the  attention  of  every  intelligent 
American  Israelite. 

Whenever  a  number  of  men,  in  open  assembly, 
boldly  assert  an  opinion  which  runs  counter  to 
current  ideas,  but  which  impresses  us  with  the 
sincerity  of  their  purpose  and  the  purity  of 
their  motives,  we  are  in  duty  bound  to  give 
them  a  hearing.  Experience  ought  to  have 
taught  us  that  a  new  truth  never  was  cham- 
pioned by  the  many,  but  by  the  few,  and  that 
the  great  number  of  devotees  is  not  always  a 
true  criterion  of  the  worthiness  of  a  cause.  We 
ought  to  have  learned  by  this  time  to  be  the 
more  careful  about  condemning  a  measure  the 
greater  the  opposition  is  which  rises  against  it. 
The  very  greatness  of  that  opposition  is  the 
best  proof  that  something  of  vast  importance 
must  be  hidden  in  the  measure,  calling  for  it. 
Men  do  not  use  heavy  artillery  to  demolish 
houses  built  of  cards.  The  bomb-shells  which 
so  far  have  been  fired  at  the  results  of  the  con- 
ference, by  the  orthodox  press  or  by  over-zealous 


172  Messianic  Expectations. 

pulpit  orators,  are  sufficient  proof  that  the  prin- 
ciples declared  at  Pittsburg  are  not  made  of 
pasteboard,  but  of  solid  masonry. 

An  assembly  of  sixteen  intelligent  men,  who 
are  all  highly  educated  and  well  versed  in  the 
history  of  Judaism;  who  all  have  made  theology 
the  study  of  their  lives ;  who  all  are  supposed 
to  represent  the  views  held  by  the  most  promi- 
nent congregations  of  America,  —  such  an  as- 
sembly, be  it  authorized  or  unauthorized,  carries 
some  weight  at  least  with  it.  The  views  which 
these  gentlemen  so  freely  expressed  in  their 
declaration  of  principles  ought,  therefore,  to  be 
studied  by  every  conscientious  Israelite,  and 
neither  be  judged  in  an  angry  mood  nor  con- 
demned in  haste. 

Although  personally  I  am  ready  to  subscribe 
to  every  paragraph  of  the  Pittsburg  platform, 
and  although  I  feel  now  extremely  sorry  that 
circumstances  over  which  I  had  no  control  pre- 
vented me  from  being  present  at  that  momen- 
tous meeting,  I  do  not  wish  you  to  be  biassed  in 
your  decision  by  me  or  anybody  else,  nor  to 
look  at  only  one  side  of  the  shield. 

It  becomes  my  duty  to  lay  the  whole  matter 
before  you,  and  to  discuss  it  with  all  possible 
impartiality ;  but  it  is  as  well  your  duty  to 
grant  to  such  an  important  matter  some  of 
your  leisure  time,  to  think  about  it,  and  to 
discuss  it  in  the  circles  of  your  friends.  If  you 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  1 73 

should  become  convinced  of  the  timeliness  and 
the  soundness  of  the  principles  declared  by 
the  conference,  you  ought  to  ratify  them,  to 
strengthen  the  cause  morally  by  your  approval, 
and  to  encourage  the  bold  leaders  of  the 
movement  by  your  acclamation :  if,  on  the 
other  hand,  you  should  detect  the  least  fallacy, 
the  least  inconsistency,  in  them,  you  ought  to 
denounce  them  openly ;  but  we  should  both 
grossly  neglect  our  duty,  you  as  members  of 
this  congregation  and  I  as  its  leader,  should  we 
pass  with  indifference  or  in  silence  over  a 
measure  which  cuts  so  deeply  into  the  flesh, 
and  to  the  very  bone  of  what  some  call  Judaism ; 
and  which  may  in  course  of  time  revolutionize 
the  whole  structure  of  our  religion. 

It  may  appear  to  many  that  the  Pittsburg 
Conference  and  the  subsequent  declaration 
of  principles  was  an  unnecessary  movement, 
premature,  and  entirely  uncalled-for.  Nobody 
had  invited  these  rabbies,  or  urged  them  to 
formulate  their  platform  :  apparently,  there  was 
no  reason  whatsoever  for  their  meeting,  or  for 
their  agressive  policy :  apparently,  in  the  very 
midst  of  peace  they  have  raised  the  battle-cry, 
and  have  fired  the  first  shot  over  the  peacefully 
slumbering  Jewish  communities.  Apparently, 
the  platform  resolved  upon  is  a  novelty,  which 
is  expected  to  produce  a  desirable  effect. 

But  the  Pittsbarg  Conference  is  not  a  cause, 


174  Messianic  Expectations. 

which  is  to  produce  an  effect :  on  the  contrary, 
it  is  an  effect,  which  had  been  produced  by  a 
cause.  It  is  not  an  uncalled-for  measure :  on 
the  contrary,  the  members  of  the  conference 
were  forced  into  it  by  the  pressure  of  their 
consciences.  The  hypocrisy  and  inconsistency 
of  the  present  state  of  religious  affairs  had  be- 
come too  great  for  them  to  be  borne  any  longer. 
For  years  the  most  prominent  of  these  gentle- 
men had  in  vain  endeavored  to  reconcile  the 
past  with  the  present,  to  patch  up  the  outworn 
religious  garment,  and  to  fit  it  to  a  body  which 
had  outgrown  it.  No  soonor  had  they  stretched 
it  on  the  one  side  when  it  shrank  on  the  other: 
no  sooner  had  they  mended  it  in  one  place 
when  it  burst  open  somewhere  else.  They 
finally  came  to  the  conclusion  that  a  new  gar- 
ment was  needed ;  and  therefore  they  cast 
away  the  old  shreds. 

A  flash  of  lightning  is  the  discharge  of  a 
quantity  of  electricity  which  has  been  accumu- 
lating in  the  clouds  for  some  time :  thus  is  the 
Pittsburg  Conference  merely  a  discharge  of 
new  thought  which  had  been  silently  growing 
and  ripening  in  the  minds  of  people  during  the 
last  fifty  years. 

Before,  therefore,  we  enter  upon  a  discussion 
of  the  actual  work  of  the  conference,  before  we 
take  up  the  declaration  of  principles  in  para- 
graphical order,  I  consider  it  of  the  greatest 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  175 

importance  to  acquaint  you  with  the  causes 
which  have  produced  such  an  astonishing 
result,  and  to  disclose  to  you  a  few  glimpses 
of  the  history  of  American  Judaism ;  a  history 
which  is  yet  too  young  to  have  found  a  historian. 

Every  species  of  plant  is  subdivided  into 
families,  which,  though  they  are  alike  in  their 
main  features,  differ  from  one  another  in  minor 
points.  This  difference  in  the  size  of  the 
foliage,  in  the  color  and  the  odor  of  the  blos- 
som, is  sometimes  caused  by  climatic  influences. 
The  same  law  of  nature  prevails  in  the  animal 
kingdom.  A  similar  one  holds  good  in  the 
realms  of  thought  and  religion.  The  highest 
productions  of  the  human  mind  are  not  exempt 
from  it.  Every  religion  is  influenced  not  only 
by  the  political  and  social  condition  of  its  ad- 
herents, but  by  the  very  climate  in  which  it  lives. 
The  very  same  religion  assumes  a  different 
form  in  different  countries.  Both  Catholicism 
and  Protestantism  have  a  far  different  appear- 
ance in  northern  and  southern  countries ;  upon 
European  and  upon  American  soil. 

This  law  of  nature  once  known  and  qualified, 
it  will  be  easily  understood  why  Judaism  has 
been  divided  into  so  many  families ;  why  the 
Portuguese  Jew  differs  so  widely  from  the 
German,  the  German  again  from  the  Polish, 
English,  or  Dutch  Jew.  It  will  be  easily  under- 
stood to  be  quite  natural  that  a  new  kind  of 


1 76  Messianic  Expectations. 

Judaism  must  spring  up  upon  American  soil, 
which,  though  it  may  carry  all  the  marks  of 
the  species,  may  still  differ  widely  from  the 
other  families  in  its  structure. 

The  seed  of  Judaism  which  had  been  brought 
across  the  ocean  to  the  shores  of  this  continent 
found  a  soil  here  far  different  from  that  upon 
which  it  had  been  accustomed  to  grow.  Take 
a  plant  which  you  have  kept  in  a  vase  of  sand 
and  in  a  dark  cellar,  and  transfer  it  to  the 
fertile  ground  of  a  garden,  where  light  and  air 
and  moisture  are  to  be  had  in  abundance ;  and 
you  will  soon  observe  a  marked  change  in  its 
structure  and  foliage ;  and  after  a  few  genera- 
tions it  will  differ  widely  from  its  prototype. 

The  time  when  Judaism  was  transplanted  to 
American  soil  will  in  the  future  be  considered 
a  turning-point  in  its  history.  At  the  most 
favorable  periods  of  its  existence  it  had  never 
been  more  than  a  tolerated  creed.  In  the 
most  enlightened  and  humane  countries  of 
Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa,  our  ancestors  had 
been  only  tolerated ;  and  it  had  been  only 
tolerance  for  which  they  had  dared  to  beg.  In 
no  country  of  the  world  have  they  ever  been 
embraced  by  the  general  legislation :  from  the 
time  of  the  Roman  Caesars  to  this  very  day 
they  have  stood  under  separate  laws,  which 
were  extended,  contracted,  or  annulled,  accord- 
ing to  the  favor  or  disfavor  which  they  found  in 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  177 

the  eye  of  the  ruler.  America  is  the  first 
country  which  has  no  such  word  as  tolerance 
in  its  political  dictionary.  It  is  the  first  country 
which  has  practically  severed  the  connection 
between  church  and  state,  and  which  acknow- 
ledges no  denominational  differences  before  its 
laws.  The  codes  of  this  country  ignore  every 
distinction  of  race  and  creed,  and  thus  place 
the  Israelite  upon  a  level  with  his  fellow- 
citizens. 

As  a  plant  which  has  been  kept  in  the  dark- 
ness  of  a  cellar  straightens  its  stem  and  spreads 
its  foliage  when  transplanted  into  a  sunny  gar- 
den, thus  the  Israelite,  as  soon  as  the  free  air 
of  America  fanned  his  face,  and  the  sunlight  of 
liberty  warmed  his  stiffened  limbs,  lifted  up  his 
head,  which  he  had  been  compelled  to  bend  sub- 
missively in  Europe.  He  stretched  himself  to 
the  full  extent  of  his  growth,  and  accustomed 
himself  to  his  new  surroundings.  Unhampered 
by  adverse  legislation,  he  soon  succeeded  in 
establishing  for  himself  and  his  dear  ones  a 
comfortable  home  in  the  land  of  his  adoption  ; 
and  by  his  honesty,  his  industry,  and  his  tem- 
perate habits,  he  won  in  general  for  himself  the 
respect  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

His  spiritual  progress,  however,  his  advance- 
ment in  religion,  did  not  keep  pace  with  his 
outward  prosperity ;  it  was  perhaps  retarded 
on  account  of  it.  In  the  old  country  he  had 


178  Messianic  Expectations. 

been  compelled  by  the  state  or  by  common 
usage  to  belong  to  some  religious  community. 
He  had  become  accustomed  there  to  let  others 
think  for  him ;  and  if  he  had  ever  dared  to 
hold  a  view  of  his  own,  he  would  have  been 
afraid  to  express  it.  Upon  American  soil  all 
this  was  changed.  No  pressure  whatever  would 
force  him  to  join  a  religious  community.  It  was 
left  to  his  own  free  will  to  associate  with  whom- 
ever he  pleased.  He  had,  furthermore,  the 
right,  not  only  to  think  for  himself,  but  to 
speak  out  his  opinion.  He  learned  to  argue  a 
point,  and  to  submit  only  to  better  judgment. 
Rationalistic  tendencies,  which  are  the  inherit- 
ance of  every  Israelite,  developed  rapidly  under 
the  favorable  conditions  which  were  granted  to 
him  upon  American  soil. 

This  freedom,  as  I  said,  became  dangerous  to 
his  religious  advancement.  Like  a  schoolboy 
in  vacation,  he  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
himself ;  there  was  no  authority  which  he  would 
or  could  respect.  He  did  not  yet  understand 
the  true  mission  of  congregational  life ;  he  did 
not  yet  see  how  great  a  power  of  morality  and 
respectability  a  religious  union  is.  He  was  not 
yet  aware  that  if  he  desired  to  rise  in  the 
estimation  of  his  fellow-citizens  he  must  be 
represented  before  them  also  in  his  higher  aspi- 
rations. In  the  hurly-burly  of  a  busy  life  he 
lost  sight  of  religion,  and  kept  aloof  from  all 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  \  79 

religious  affairs.  And,  after  all,  what  had  reli- 
gion been  to  him  before?  Nothing  but  a  bun- 
dle of  forms,  a  fardel,  which  he  threw  from 
his  shoulders  as  soon  as  the  power  which  com- 
pelled him  to  carry  it  had  lost  its  grip  upon 
him. 

Some  of  these  forms,  however,  though  bur- 
densome, had  become  dear  to  him  by  long  cus- 
tom ;  there  were  some  rites  which  he  considered 
necessary  to  his  well-being.  He  observed  the 
table  laws  as  well  as  he  could ;  he  had  the 
Abraham itic  rite  performed  on  his  children 
whenever  it  was  possible ;  and,  no  matter  how 
he  had  lived,  or  with  whom  he  had  associated 
during  his  lifetime,  some  superstitious  fear  made 
it  desirable  for  him  to  be  buried  amongst  his 
brethren,  in  a  Jewish  burial-ground.  It  was  for 
the  sake  of  maintaining  a  graveyard,  and  not 
for  the  sake  of  moral  elevation,  that  the  first 
Jewish  congregations  were  formed  in  America. 
Our  congregational  life,  indeed,  was  born  upon 
burial-places ;  most  of  our  proud  temples  have 
been'  erected  upon  graveyards.  No  wonder, 
therefore,  that  the  stillness  of  death  hovers  over 
them. 

When  public  worship  was  added  to  the  in- 
ducements which  a  congregation  held  out  to  the 
member,  the  spirit  of  freedom  became  a  new 
obstacle  to  the  development  of  our  religion. 
The  different  elements  which  had  gathered  here 


1 80  Messianic  Expectations. 

from  all  parts  of  the  world  could  not  agree  with 
one  another.  Every  one  had  brought  a  certain 
usage  from  home  to  which  he  had  been  accus- 
tomed ;  and  this  Minhag,  as  he  called  it,  he 
would  never  give  up.  In  the  old  country  he 
could  be  compelled  to  adopt  the  ritual  sanc- 
tioned by  the  state  or  by  rabbinical  authority  ; 
but  what  in  the  world  could  compel  him  here  in 
this  free  country  to  give  up  any  of  his  fancies  ? 
If  the  congregation  would  not  suit  him,  he 
would  simply  resign  and  start  a  new  one  which 
would  be  more  pliable.  It  may  be  ludicrous  to 
speak  of  race  distinctions  in  a  people  which  has 
preserved  the  purity  of  its  blood  with  such  great 
care  as  the  Jews  have ;  but,  all  the  same,  there 
it  was.  The  German,  Polish,  Dutch,  and  Eng- 
lish Jews  could  not  agree  with  one  another ; 
they  were  prejudiced,  — I  cannot  tell  by  what, 
—  against  one  another,  and  they  carried  their 
distrust  even  into  religion.  They  split,  there- 
fore, into  numerous  small  congregations,  none 
of  which  was  able  to  support  itself  decently, 
or  to  show  efficient  work ;  none  of  which  would 
give  up  one  iota  of  its  whims  and  join  the  next 
one  in  a  body. 

Now,  what  did  the  Jewish  clergy  do  during 
all  this  time  ?  There  was  none.  In  a  country 
where  the  President  holds  office  for  only  four 
years,  and  where  the  power  .of  high  state  or 
city  officials  is  limited  to  one  year,  the  rabbi, 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  181 

no  matter  how  learned  and  conscientious,  could 
win  no  influence  over  his  people.  He  was  the 
paid  official,  who  had  to  fulfil  certain  duties  de- 
fined in  a  written  contract.  It  was  his  first 
duty  to  please  the  secular  leaders  of  the  congre- 
gation. He  had  to  carry  out  their  wishes ;  and 
any  opposition  to  them  was  tantamount  to  his 
dismissal.  Fifty  years  ago  there  was  no  Jewish 
clergy  to  speak  of  in  this  country.  All  these 
conditions,  however,  changed.  The  emigration, 
which  since  the  year  1848  has  increased  with 
every  year,  brought  an  energetic  younger  ele- 
ment to  these  shores ;  and  a  new  generation 
had  in  the  meantime  arisen  in  this  country, 
which  had  passed  through  the  amalgamating 
process  of  our  public  schools  ;  and  these  two 
elements  found  allies  in  each  other.  American 
Judaism  began  to  speak.  A  Jewish  press  made 
its  appearance ;  and,  though  its  struggles  were 
hard,  it  succeeded  in  spreading  enlightenment 
and  in  removing  somewhat  the  impediment  of 
race  prejudice. 

The  lack  of  pressure  from  without  was  made 
good  by  the  urgent  demand  from  within  for 
centralization.  Orders  and  societies  for  all 
kinds  of  purposes  sprang  up,  around  which  the 
straying  elements  gathered,  and  by  means  of 
which  they  became  disciplined.  The  congrega- 
tions profited  by  the  general  activity  ;  and  the 
reform  movement  imported  from  Germany  now 


1 82  Messianic  Expectations. 

found  a  warm  reception,  and  exactly  the  ground 
which  it  needed  for  its  development. 

Although  the  opposition  to  reform  had  been 
very  powerful,  and  had  seemed  to  be  almost 
invincible,  the  liberal  movement  carried  the 
day ;  and  the  most  orthodox  of  American  con- 
gregations seems  radically  reformed  if  compared 
with  similar  congregations  in  Europe.  The 
clergy  which  filled  the  pulpits  of  the  reformed 
denomination  worked  itself  step  by  step  into 
recognition.  Its  conscientiousness,  its  learning, 
its  earnest  will,  its  ability,  made  an  everlasting 
impression  upon  the  laity ;  and  thus  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Jewish  rabbi  upon  the  formation  of 
American  Judaism  was  somewhat  increased. 

However,  the  whole  structure  of  reform  which. 
had  arisen  so  suddenly  under  the  impulse  of  the 
moment  had  been  built  upon  sand.  It  lacked  a 
foundation  ;  it  lacked  principle.  Reform  had  so 
far  been  a  compromise  between  the  past  and 
the  present,  and  had,  therefore,  given  satisfac- 
tion to  neither  party.  Reform  had  so  far 
changed  the  outward  appearance  of  our  re- 
ligion ;  it  had  so  far  removed  nothing  but  cere- 
monies which  had  outlived  their  usefulness  ; 
but  it  had  never  touched  the  root ;  it  had  never 
attempted  to  examine  whether  or  not  some  of 
the  underlying  principles  had  become  obsolete. 

On  the  one  hand,  modern  researches,  modern 
science,  and  modern  philosophy,  had  revolu- 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  183 

tionized  the  world  ;  they  had  thrown  a  search- 
ing light  upon  the  history  of  mankind ;  and  by 
this  light  a  great  many  errors  were  discovered 
which  formerly  had  been  covered  by  the  night 
of  ignorance.  All  religious  denominations  had 
been  compelled  to  change  their  front,  and  Juda- 
ism, rational  and  flexible  as  it  is,  could  not  re- 
main in  the  rear.  On  the  other  hand,  customs 
and  usages  which  had  lived  for  thousands  of 
years  are  not  so  easily  thrown  aside ;  even  if 
we  become  convinced  of  their  uselessness,  we 
revere  them  as  relics,  and  dislike  to  part  with 
them. 

This  anomaly  soon  became  evident.  Congre- 
gational life  retrograded  on  account  of  it.  The 
most  gorgeous  temples,  the  most  artistic  music, 
and  the  most  elaborate  sermons,  failed  to  attract 
an  audience.  There  was  a  discrepancy  between 
the  official  sermon  of  the  rabbi  and  his  private 
utterances  ;  there  was  a  discrepancy  between 
the  teachings  of  the  temple  and  the  practices  of 
the  home.  This  inconsistency  created  hypoc- 
risy, and  alienated  the  most  intelligent  part  of 
the  Jewish  population  from  religion. 

For  want  of  a  platform  upon  which  an  intelli- 
gent man  could  build  up  his  religion,  many 
turned  away  from  Judaism  and  joined  the  ranks 
of  the  atheists.  The  fervor  with  which  Ameri- 
can Jews  hailed  the  establishment  of  a  society 
for  ethical  culture,  gave  evidence,  on  the  one 


1 84  Messianic  Expectations. 

hand,  of  a  strong  and  warm  religious  sentiment ; 
on  the  other,  of  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  think- 
ing part  of  the  Jewish  population  with  the 
patchwork  of  reform. 

A  definition  of  what  modern  Judaism  is,  was 
needed.  It  became  evident  that  we  must  cut 
loose  from  the  sinking  ship,  or  be  drowned 
with  it. 

Impressed  with  the  urgency  of  the  demand 
for  a  new  platform,  for  a  definition  which 
should  finally  establish  a  basis  for  our  future 
development,  the  gentlemen  who  assembled  at 
Pittsburg  rose  to  the  emergency.  They  spoke 
out  simultaneously  what  they  had  harbored  for 
years  in  their  hearts,  but  had  not  dared  to 
utter.  They  defined  modern  Judaism  and 
opened  the  way  for  its  progress.  Without 
losing  the  connection  with  the  past,  they  made 
Judaism  the  religion  of  the  future.  Upon  the 
Pittsburg  Platform  every  intelligent  man  can 
stand  without  the  fear  of  breaking  through  it. 
It  stands  elevated  above  superstition,  and  will 
never  be  reached  by  the  waves  of  atheism. 

The  change  which  Judaism  by  necessity  had 
to  undergo  upon  the  new  soil  has  now  been  ac- 
complished. American  Judaism  has  now  passed 
its  first  stage ;  and  the  Declaration  of  Princi- 
ples laid  down  by  the  conference  is  the  seed 
from  which  a  new  plant  will  grow,  which, 
though  differing  in  structure,  foliage,  and  color, 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  185 

from  the  European  family,  will  still  bear  the 
marks  of  the  same  species. 

The  Pittsburg  Conference  was  the  natural 
outcome  of  years  of  religious  indifference  and 
stagnation :  it  was  the  reconciliation  of  modern 
thought  with  religious  sentiment :  it  was  the 
proof  of  the  immortality  of  Judaism.  It  was 
rather  the  closing  scene  of  a  past  period  than 
the  opening  scene  of  a  new  one. 

The  bristling  caterpillar  and  the  gold-winged 
butterfly  are  one  and  the  same  insect,  though 
they  differ  widely  in  their  form  and  mode  of  liv- 
ing. The  caterpillar,  preparing  its  own  coffin, 
transforms  itself  therein  into  the  new  creation. 
When  its  transformation  is  perfected,  the  but- 
terfly bursts  the  cocoon  and  unfolds  its  wings, 
forcing  its  way  into  liberty,  into  the  balmy  air, 
to  play  with  sunshine  and  flowers. 

The  Pittsburg  Conference  marks  in  like  wise 
the  bursting  of  the  old  and  outgrown  bonds  of 
Judaism,  and  the  emergence  therefrom  of  its 
new  and  nobler  phase. 


XII. 
THE  PITTSBURG  CONFERENCE:   ITS  WORK. 

N  my  last  lecture  I  discussed  the  causes 
which  in  my  opinion  led  to  the  Pittsburg 
Rabbinical  Conference.  Speaking  now  of 
its  work,  I  know  of  no  better  introduction 
than  to  give  the  platform  which  has  been  con-, 
structed  by  the  rabbies  who  formed  that  mem- 
orable conclave.  The  following  is  its  full  text : 

In  view  of  the  wide  divergence  of  conflicting 
ideas  of  Judaism  to-day,  we,  as  representatives  of 
Reform  Judaism  in  America,  in  continuation  of  the 
work  begun  in  Philadelphia  in  1869,  unite  upon  the 
following  principles  :  — 

I.  We  recognize  in  every  religion  an  attempt  to 
grasp  the  infinite  ;  and  in  every  mode,  source,  or 
book  of  revelation  held  sacred  in  any  religious  sys- 
tem the  consciousness  of  the  indwelling  of  God  in 
man.  We  hold  that  Judaism  presents  the  highest 
conception  of  the  God  idea  as  taught  in  our  Scrip- 
tures and  developed  and  spiritualized  by  the  Jewish 
teachers  in  accordance  with  the  moral  and  philo- 
sophical progress  of  their  respective  ages.  We 
maintain  that  Judaism  preserved  and  defended, 
amid  continual  struggles  and  trials,  under  enforced 
isolation,  the  God  idea  as  the  central  truth  for  the 
whole  human  race. 

1 86 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  187 

II.  We  recognize  In  the  Bible  the  record  of  the 
conservation  of  the  Jewish  people  to  its  mission  as 
priest  of  the  one  God,  and  value  it  as  the  most  potent 
instrument  of  religious  and  moral   instruction.     We 
hold  that  the  modern  discoveries   and  scientific  re- 
searches in  the  domain  of  nature  and  history  are  not 
antagonistic  to  the  doctrines   of  Judaism ;  the  Bible 
reflecting  the  primitive  ideas  of  its  own  age,  and  at 
times  clothing  its  conceptions   of  divine  providence 
and  justice  dealing  with  man    in  miraculous  narra- 
tives. 

III.  We   recognize    in  the   Mosaic   legislation   a 
system  of  training  the  Jewish  people  for  its  mission 
during  its  national  life  in  Palestine ;  and  to-day  we 
accept  as  binding  only  the  moral  laws,  and  maintain 
only  such    ceremonies   as  elevate  and  sanctify  our 
lives,  but  reject  all  such  as  are  not  adapted  to  the 
views  and  habits  of  modern  civilization. 

IV.  We  hold  that  all  such  Mosaic  and  rabbini- 
cal laws  as  regulated  diet,  priestly  purity,  and  dress, 
originated  in  ages  and  under  the  influence  of  ideas 
altogether  foreign  to  our  present  mental  and  spiritual 
state.     They  fail  to  impress  the  modern  Jew  with  a 
spirit  of  priestly  holiness ;  and  their  observance  in 
our  days  is  apt  rather  to  obstruct  than  to  further 
modern  spiritual  elevation. 

V.  We  recognize  in  the  modern  era  of  universal 
culture  of  heart  and  intellect  the  approach  to  the 
realization  of  Israel's  great  Messianic  hope  for  the 
establishment  of  the   kingdom  of  truth,  justice,  and 
peace,  amongst  all  men.     We  consider  ourselves  no 
longer  a   nation,  but    a    religious  community;    and 
therefore  expect  neither  a  return  to  Palestine,  nor  a 
sacrificial  worship  under  the  sons  of  Aaron,  nor  the 
restoration  of  the  laws  concerning  the  Jewish  state. 

VI.  We  recognize  in  Judaism  a  progressive  reli- 
gion, ever  striving  to  be  in  accord  with  the  postulates 
of  reason.    We  are  convinced  of  the  utmost  necessity 
of  preserving  the  historical  identity  with  our  great 


1 88  Messianic  Expectations. 

past.  Christianity  and  Islam  being  daughter  religions 
of  Judaism,  we  appreciate  their  providential  mission 
to  and  in  the  spreading  of  monotheistic  and  moral 
truth.  We  acknowledge  that  the  spirit  of  broad  hu- 
manity of  our  age  is  our  ally  in  the  fulfilment  of  our 
mission ;  and  therefore  we  extend  the  hand  of 
fellowship  to  all  who  operate  with  us  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  reign  of  truth  and  righteousness 
among  men. 

VII.  We  re-assert  the  doctrine  of  Judaism,  that 
the  soul  of  man  is  immortal :  grounding  this  belief 
on  the  divine  nature  of  the  human  spirit,  which  for- 
ever finds  bliss  in  righteousness  and  misery  in  wick- 
edness.    We  reject,  as  ideas  not  rooted  in  Judaism, 
the  beliefs  both  in  bodily  resurrection  and  in  Gehenna 
and  Eden  (Hell  and  Paradise)  as  abodes  for  ever- 
lasting punishment  or  reward. 

VIII.  In  full  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  Mosaic 
legislation,  which  strives  to  regulate  the  relations 
between  rich  and  poor,  we  deem  it  our  duty  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  great  task  of  modern  times :  to  solve, 
on  the  basis  of  justice  and  righteousness,  the  prob- 
lems produced   by  the  contrasts  and  evils   of   the 
present  organization  of  society. 

A  French  statesman  of  the  last  century  is 
credited  with  the  paradox  that  the  human  lan- 
guage was  invented  for  the  sake  of  concealing 
one's  thoughts,  and  that  his  remark  must  have 
been  founded  upon  some  sharp  observation,  and 
is  not  altogether  absurd,  is  again  substantiated 
by  the  eight  paragraphs  of  the  Pittsburg  Plat- 
form. Indeed,  the  greater  part  of  their  phrase- 
ology is  merely  ornamental ;  and  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  purpose  of  concealing  some 
thoughts,  it  would  have  been  superfluous.  But 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  1 89 

the  task  of  the  Convention  was  a  difficult  one. 
It  was  to  speak  the  truth  before  a  community 
unaccustomed  to  its  sound,  and  unwilling  to 
hear  it.  It  became  therefore  necessary  to 
sugar-coat  the  bitter  pill  which  the  patient  was 
to  take  ;  and  instead  of  criticising  the  verbosity 
of  the  eight  paragraphs,  let  us  simply  do,  what 
I  suppose  the  framers  wish  us  to  do,  remove 
the  shell  and  lay  bare  the  kernel. 

It  was  quite  natural  that  the  first  and  most 
prominent  plank  in  the  platform  of  a  religion 
must  be  a  definition  of  the  God  idea.  Unless  a 
religion  denies  the  existence  of  a  God,  it  must 
give  some  approximate  description  of  its  con- 
ception of  the  supreme  being.  However,  this 
very  conditio  sine  qua  non  has  once  before  led 
to  a  rupture  and  break-up  of  a  rab.binical  con- 
ference. Some  of  the  divines  composing  it 
objected  to  the  theory  of  a  personal  God ; 
others  to  that  of  an  impersonal  divinity. 

Guided  by  this  sad  experience,  the  Pittsburg 
Conference,  though  maintaining  that  the  exis- 
tence of  a  God  stands  above  any  doubt,  refrained 
from  defining  the  indefinable.  It  maintained, 
rightly,  that  religion  is  only  an  attempt  to  grasp 
the  infinite ;  that  all  definitions  of  the  supreme 
being  which  have  come  down  to  us  so  far  by 
means  of  a  so-called  sacred  literature  are  sim- 
ply the  proof  of  our  consciousness  of  the  in- 
dwelling of  God  in  man.  It  furthermore  main- 


igo  Messianic  Expectations. 

tained  that  Judaism  has  held  the  highest  con- 
ception of  God  at  every  period  of  its  existence ; 
that  it  has  developed  and  spiritualized  it  in 
accordance  with  the  moral  and  philosophical 
progress  of  the  successive  ages. 

If  this  first  paragraph  is  to  be  translated  into 
plainer  language,  it  says  no  more  and  no  less 
than  that  our  conception  of  God  has  been  the 
product  of  numerous  evolutions  ;  that  the  God 
of  Moses  was  evolved  from  that  of  Abraham  ; 
that  the  God  of  Isaiah  was  an  improvement  over 
that  of  Samuel ;  and  that  consequently  our  con- 
ception of  God  to-day  must  be  higher,  grander, 
and  purer,  than  that  of  past  generations,  in  the 
same  proportion  as  humanity  has  advanced 
morally  and  intellectually  and  its  mental  hori- 
zon has  been  extended.  The  theory  of  evolu- 
tion adapted  to  the  God  idea  places  us  far 
above  our  ancestors,  and  suggests  the  hope 
that  future  generations  will  come  still  nearer 
to  its  true  conception.  It  furthermore  grants 
to  every  individual  the  right  of  defining  God  as 
he  pleases  and  is  able  to ;  and  this  is  a  conces- 
sion which  has  never  been  made  before,  but 
which  is  the  basis  for  a  universal  religion,  for 
the  religion  of  humanity.  Let  us  understand 
this  point  well. 

There  are  no  two  persons  who  hold  exactly 
the  same  conception  of  the  divinity.  Their 
ideas  may  tally  in  some  points  ;  but  they  will  dif- 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  191 

fer  in  others.  The  greater  the  difference  in  their 
intellect  and  their  education  is,  the  greater  and 
the  more  marked  will  be  the  difference  between 
their  Gods.  Heretofore  every  religious  system 
has  had  a  well-defined  God  idea,  the  knowledge 
of  which  it  claimed  to  have  obtained  by  special 
revelation  ;  and  therefore  it  promulgated  it  as 
the  only  correct  one,  even  at  the  point  of  the 
sword,  and  compelled  its  adherents,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, its  opponents  even,  to  submit  to  it  and  to 
acquiesce  in  it.  Human  reason,  however,  re- 
volted against  such  compulsion.  The  God  idea 
of  Moses  towered  far  above  that  of  his  contem- 
poraries ;  still,  he  found  it  impossible  to  elevate 
his  people  to  his  ideas,  and  it  took  more  than 
half  a  millennium  before  his  conception  of  God 
had  become  popular.  Just  as  impossible  would 
it  have  been  for  the  people  to  drag  Moses  down 
to  their  low  standpoint. 

Place  a  man  of  the  stamp  of  an  Emerson  by 
the  side  of  a  man  who,  though  he  may  be  the 
most  honest  and  conscientious  of  mortals,  has 
not  received  a  training  in  abstract  thinking. 
Place  two  such  men  side  by  side,  and  demand  of 
them  to  grasp  the  selfsame  God  idea.  Although 
God,  the  Infinite,  is  the  same  being  that  he  has 
been  and  shall  ever  be,  although  our  conception 
of  him  does  not  change  a  particle  of  his  es- 
sence, such  a  demand  would  be  absurd.  The 
one  will  follow  the  vestiges  of  God  through  the 


192  Messianic  Expectations. 

immensities  of  the  spheres ;  he  will  see  his 
grandeur  in  the  turbulent  waves  of  the  history 
of  mankind  ;  he  will  detect  his  presence  in  his 
consciousness  of  self,  and  philosophically  ana- 
lyze his  essence  as  it  presents  itself  in  the  dif- 
ferent departments  of  the  human  mind.  The 
other  will  behold  in  him  merely  the  giver  of  his 
daily  bread  and  the  stern  judge  of  his  actions ; 
he  will  unburden  his  heart  before  him  in 
prayer,  and  expect  of  him,  his  best  and  most 
powerful  friend,  that  he  will  intercede  in  the 
trivial  affairs  of  life ;  he  will  live  and  die  in 
what  he  calls  the  fear  of  God.  What  right 
would  the  first  one  have  to  force  his  world-em- 
bracing ideas  of  God  upon  the  second  one  ? 
And  by  what  right  could  the  second  one  compel 
the  first  one  to  accept  his  anthropomorphic 
theories  ?  All  religious  dissensions  which  have 
disunited  the  human  brotherhood,  all  religious 
persecutions  and  wars  which  have  soiled  the 
record  of  humanity,  had  their  origin  in  the  belief 
that  their  own  God  idea  alone  was  the  correct 
one;  that  all  others,  being  erroneous,  were  an 
insult  to  God,  which  the  holders  of  the  true  idea 
must  by  right  avenge. 

But  from  the  time  that  Lessing  wrote  his 
"  Nathan  the  Wise,"  and  in  the  fable  of  the  three 
rings  made  him  utter  the  remarkable  words, 
"  The  genuine  ring  has  perhaps  been  lost,  and 
ye  all  three  are  deceived  impostors  (betrogene 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  193 

Betruger),"  from  that  time  a  change  of  thought 
came  over  the  world.  Intelligent  men  allowed 
to  others  their  own  conceptions  of  God,  but  de- 
manded the  same  privilege  for  themselves. 
Religious  controversies  disappeared,  or  lost 
their  sting.  The  God  idea  of  a  man  was  tested 
by  the  way  he  realized  it  in  his  life.  If  it  had 
the  result  of  making  him  an  honest  man,  it  was 
called  genuine,  no  matter  how  high  or  how  low 
its  standard  was ;  if  it  contained  no  such  force, 
it  was  rejected  as  wrong,  no  matter  how  scru- 
pulously that  man  performed  the  ceremonies  of 
his  church,  and  how  hypocritically  he  proclaimed 
his  belief  in  God. 

As  intelligent  men,  we  can  no  longer  adhere 
to  the  theory  that  the  God  ideas  of  an  Abraham, 
a  Moses,  or  Isaiah,  were  the  only  correct  ones  ; 
that  the  conception  which  our  ancestors  had 
of  God  is  exclusively  the  only  true  one  ; 
that,  to  speak  in  the  words  of  the  fable,  we 
alone  own  the  genuine  ring.  Religion  is  for  us, 
as  the  Conference  grandly  defines  it,  "an  at- 
tempt merely  to  grasp  the  infinite ; "  and  with 
every  step  which  humanity  has  advanced,  with 
every  evolution  through  which  the  history  of 
Israel  has  passed,  these  attempts  have  grown 
bolder  and  more  successful.  Led  by  the  van  of 
philosophers  and  thinkers  of  all  nationalities, 
the  great  bulk  of  humanity  has  progressed, 
though  slowly,  in  its  religious  views.  The 


194  Messianic  Expectations. 

monotheistic  God  idea  has  won  the  victory,  and 
has  replaced  polytheism  and  pantheism.  The 
average  conception  of  God  has  become  purer 
and  more  sublime  than  it  ever  was  before ;  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  it  will  receive  its  highest 
development  and  its  loftiest  spiritual  ization, 
provided  full  freedom  is  left  to  the  individual 
mind  to  grasp  the  infinite  to  the  extent  of  its 
compass.  As  the  first  of  the  Mosaic  laws  was 
a  proclamation  of  freedom,  so  the  first  para- 
graph of  the  Pittsburg  Convention  removes  the 
shackles  of  a  uniform  and  unchangeable  God 
idea,  and  claims  the  liberty  for  every  man  to 
form  his  own  idea  concerning  the  great  Ehejeh 
asher  Ehejeh  ;  or,  in  other  words,  gives  him  full 
liberty  in  his  attempts  to  grasp  the  infinite. 

Upon  this  plank  the  intelligent  of  all  sects 
and  denominations  can  unite.  It  is  a  plank  for 
the  religion  of  the  future. 

The  Conference  found  it  necessary  to  devote 
several  paragraphs  to  its  definition  of  the  Bible. 
The  Bible  is  a  book  which  has  been  in  the  pos- 
session of  our  nation  for  not  less  than  twenty- 
three  hundred  years.  Its  old  age  alone  makes 
it  venerable  to  us ;  but  it  has  a  value  for  us 
besides  its  antiquity.  It  is  an  inexhaustible 
mine  of  wise  and  profound  thought.  Its  pages 
are  full  of  the  noblest  sentiment ;  its  philosophy 
is  comprehensive,  its  poetry  soul-inspiring,  its 
ethics  both  ennobling  and  practical.  As  a  lit- 


The  Pittsbiirg  Conference.  195 

erary  production,  the  Bible  stands  unsurpassed. 
If  we  had  stopped  right  here,  I  believe  that 
never  a  word  would  have  been  uttered  against 
the  venerable  book.  But  we  did  not  stop  there. 
The  Bible,  probably  on  account  of  its  sublimity, 
was  pronounced  to  be  the  direct  work  of  God. 
It  was  stated  that  God  himself  wrote,  or  at 
least  dictated,  every  word  of  it ;  that  he  dis- 
tinctly expressed  his  sovereign  will  by  means  of 
it ;  that,  therefore,  not  one  of  the  laws  contained 
therein  could  be  abrogated,  changed,  or  abol- 
ished ;  that  we  may  interpret  its  wording,  but 
are  not  allowed  to  question  one  of  its  statements. 
The  belief  in  the  divinity  of  the  Bible  was  made 
an  article  of  creed.  Down  to  the  end  of  the 
last  century,  no  religious  system  ever  questioned 
the  principle  of  revelation  by  means  of  a  book ; 
on  the  contrary,  every  religious  system  thought 
it  to  be  a  matter  of  utmost  necessity  to  prove 
its  genuineness  by  such  a  book.  Christianity 
brought  forth  the  New  Testament  to  match  and 
offset  the  old  one ;  Mohammed  produced  the 
Koran  ;  and  even  the  present  Mormonism  at- 
tempted to  prove  its  divine  mission  by  docu- 
mentary evidence. 

The  development  of  science,  however,  has 
undermined  in  the  course  of  time  the  belief  in 
the  divinity  of  the  Bible.  As  a  book  of  human 
origin,  reflecting  the  ideas  of  past  generations 
and  treasuring  up  the  wisdom  of  humanity  in  a 


196  Messianic  Expectations. 

condensed  form,  common  sense  could  revere 
the  book  ;  but  it  revolted  against  its  alleged 
divine  authorship.  Grand  as  is  the  Bible  when 
considered  as  the  product  of  man,  it  reflects 
little  honor  upon  a  divine  author.  While  the 
creations  of  God  are  all  perfect,  the  Bible  is 
imperfect.  It  requires  a  strong  dose  of  credu- 
lity to  cover  its  deficiencies  and  discrepancies. 
Science  and  modern  research  became,  therefore, 
the  most  implacable  enemies  of  the  Bible ;  but 
not  in  so  far  as  the  Bible  itself  is  concerned ;  in 
so  far  only  as  a  divine  authorship  is  claimed  for 
it,  and  its  errors  are  presented  to  us  as  undenia- 
ble truth  on  the  strength  of  it. 

All  attempts  to  reconcile  with  modern 
thought  the  statements  and  narratives  of  the 
Bible  taken  literally  have  so  far  failed ;  and 
while  on  the  one  hand  we  were  afraid  to  haul 
down  the  flag  and  accept  the  conditions  of 
the  victor,  our  daily  life  brought  us  on  the 
other  hand  in  conflict  with  and  in  constant  di- 
vergence from  both  the  historical  part  of  the 
Bible  and  some  of  its  laws.  A  shameless 
hypocrisy,  which  undermined  all  religious  fer- 
vor, was  the  consequence  of  it.  It  became 
evident  that  this  unnatural  state  of  affairs 
was  to  be  brought  to  an  end  unless  the  best 
and  sincerest  element  were  to  be  lost  for 
religion.  There  were  only  two  ways  before 
us,  one  of  which  must  be  chosen  :  either  the 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.    *  197 

Bible  was  the  direct  word  of  God,  in  which 
case  every  one  of  its  prescriptions  must  be 
fulfilled  by  us,  no  matter  whether  it  was  appro- 
priate or  not ;  we  had  no  right  to  change  any 
of  them  either  by  way  of  interpretation  or 
interpolation;  if  they  were  the  laws  of  God, 
they  must  stand  for  all  times  and  all  countries. 
Or,  the  Bible  was  the  product  of  human  genius, 
in  which  case  we  could  easily  account  for  its 
deficiencies.  We  could  easily  comprehend  that 
the  writers,  without  the  remotest  idea  of  de- 
ceiving us,  had  explained  things  to  the  best 
of  their  knowledge ;  we  could  subtract  poetical 
exaggeration  and  reduce  facts  to  their  pos- 
sibly true  basis ;  we  could  admire  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  past,  and  accept  of  it  what  was 
useful  and  practicable  for  us  ;  we  could  claim 
the  right  of  legislating  for  ourselves  as  former 
generations  did  for  themselves.  Thus  all  antag- 
onism against  the  Bible  would  cease  at  once, 
and  it  would  become  again  the  book  of  the 
world. 

This  bold  step  has  been  taken  by  the  Pitts- 
burg  Conference.  The  doors  have  been  thrown 
open  to  a  normal  progress  of  religion  and  to  the 
development  of  new  forms  which  will  corre- 
spond better  than  the  former  with  the  demands 
of  the  hour,  and  will  tend  to  elevate  and  sanctify 
our  lives.  The  prevailing  hypocrisy,  the  child- 
ish playing  with  antiquated  forms  which  had 


198  Messianic  Expectations. 

been  substituted  for  earnest,  practical,  religious 
work,  have  been  done  away  with ;  and  the  prin- 
ciple, once  boldly  asserted  and  proclaimed,  will 
soon  give  practical  results. 

It  is  with  you  to  indorse  or  reject  the  defini- 
tion of  the  Bible  as  given  by  the  Pittsburg  Con- 
ference. Your  acceptance  will  open  a  new  era 
in  your  religious  life ;  it  will  cause  you  to  deter- 
mine for  yourselves,  and  to  work  practically  for 
religion  ;  it  will  elevate  you  and  sanctify  your 
lives ;  it  will  make  you  zealous  and  enthusiastic 
in  the  service  of  a  cause  which  will  indeed  be 
your  cause.  Your  rejection  of  it  would  be  tan- 
tamount to  the  former  drugging  indifference 
which  has  lulled  all  religion  into  sleep ;  it 
would  mean  empty  churches,  disorderly  Sab- 
bath-schools, discord  between  parents  and  chil- 
dren, moral  weakness,  and  final  extinction  of 
morality. 

These  two  points  were  the  most  important 
ones  which  came  before  the  Conference.  They 
rise  above  the  trivialities  of  the  Sabbath  ques- 
tion and  others  of  the  same  character.  In  fact, 
they  include  them.  Freeing  you  from  the 
slavery  of  the  past,  they  give  you  the  power  of 
legislation,  and  leave  it  with  you  to  adjust  all 
religious  forms  in  accordance  with  the  dictates 
of  your  common  sense  and  your  conscience. 

The  other  points  are  all  of  minor  importance. 
These  two  points  once  understood,  it  becomes 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  199 

evident  that  we  form  no  nationality,  but  a  reli- 
gious sect ;  that  we  reject  all  hopes  in  the  ad- 
vent of  a  personal  Messiah  ;  and,  if  the  word 
"  Messianic  "  is  needed  in  the  religious  vocabu- 
lary, we  express  by  it  the  hope  in  a  time  when 
all  humanity  will  have  reached  its  highest  de- 
velopment. In  the  meantime,  and  this  the 
eighth  paragraph  lays  to  our  heart,  we  must 
not  divorce  religion  from  life  ;  we  must  partici- 
pate as  a  body  in  the  solution  of  all  the  prob- 
lems of  the  day ;  we  must  lend  a  helping  hand, 
as  a  body,  to  the  re-organization  of  society  and 
to  the  removal  of  all  the  evils  which  the  present 
system  carries  with  it.  We  must  participate,  as 
a  body,  in  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of 
our  less  fortunate  brethren ;  and  the  work  of 
charity  must  become  one  of  the  noblest  branches 
of  religious  activity. 

The  hope  of  immortality,  too,  was  inserted  as 
a  plank  in  the  Pittsburg  platform.  Its  existence 
was  acknowledged ;  but  no  definition  was  at- 
tempted in  a  matter  which  defies  definition. 
All  those  superstitious  fancies  which  have  crept 
into  Judaism,  as  that  of  heaven  and  hell,  have 
been  rejected  ;  the  Conference  has  dealt  with 
"one  world  at  a  time." 

This  has  been  the  work  of  the  Conference  ; 
and  every  intelligent  Israelite  can  stand  upon 
its  platform,  for  it  is  truly  Jewish  in  its  spirit. 
It  acknowledges  the  one  God,  the  common 


2OO  Messianic  Expectations. 

Father  of  mankind  ;  it  acknowledges  the  great 
services  which  Israel  has  rendered  to  humanity, 
in  spreading  the  monotheistic  idea ;  it  pro- 
claims liberty  of  thought ;  it  appreciates  in  the 
Bible  a  literary  treasure,  venerable  by  its  age, 
and  admirable  on  account  of  the  inexhaustible 
stores  of  wisdom  which  it  contains  ;  it  makes 
us  co-workers  in  the  great  work  of  humanity, 
and  bids  us  to  help  build  up  the  grand  dome  of 
human  civilization ;  it  inspires  us  with  the  hope 
of  immortality,  without  exciting  our  sensuality 
or  our  fear. 

As  could  not  have  been  expected  otherwise, 
this  work  has  been  furiously  attacked.  But  by 
whom  ?  By  all  such  as  could  not  or  would  not 
think  ;  by  all  such  as  preferred  indifference  to 
active  work ;  by  all  such  as  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  look  at  one  side  of  a  question  only ; 
by  all  such  as  would  profit  by  their  hypocrisy, 
and  lose  materially  if  a  new  avenue  were 
opened.  An  army,  no  matter  how  large,  if  re- 
cruited of  a  lazy,  timid,  and  ignorant  element, 
will  be  as  easily  put  to  flight  by  a  small  body  of 
courageous  men,  as  was  the  contingent  which 
Falstaff  led  into  the  field. 

I  could  close  my  discussion  of  the  subject  right 
here,  were  it  not  that  the  work  of  the  Confer- 
ence has  been  misrepresented  by  its  foes ;  were 
it  not  that,  ignoring  its  true  inwardness,  they 
have  picked  up  two  trifling  points  which  had 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  201 

been  mentioned  informally  only  at  the  Confer- 
ence in  connection  with  the  main  principles,  and 
attempted  to  scare  all  true  Israelites  from  it. 
These  two  points  are  the  Sabbath  question  and 
the  performance  of  the  Abrahamitic  rite.  Let 
us  face  these  two  questions  fairly  and  squarely. 
There  is  a  certain  timidity  observable  as  soon 
as  they  are  touched  upon  even  in  private  con- 
versation ;  but  if  it  is  true  that  they  are  indeed 
the  main  pillars  of  Judaism,  they  ought  to  be 
strong  enough  to  bear  the  light  of  a  fair  discus- 
sion at  least.  I  fail  to  see  why  we  should  re- 
frain from  treating  these  points  publicly  :  as 
the  modern  rabbi  is  no  infallible  Pope,  and 
grants  his  hearers  the  privilege  of  differing 
from  him. 

In  regard  to  the  Sabbath,  the  Conference 
could  not  but  acknowledge  the  historical  Sab- 
bath —  our  Sabbath  ;  —  but  it  warned  against 
the  customary  hypocrisy  of  naming  one  day  of 
rest  and  of  keeping  another,  or  none  at  all. 
The  main  principle  of  the  Sabbath  is  not  that 
we  visit  a  temple  and  listen  to  a  sermon ;  it  is 
our  actual  abstinence  from  work.  The  divine 
worship  on  that  day  is  a  secondary  considera- 
tion. Leaving  the  power  of  decision  in  your 
own  hands,  the  Conference  merely  advised  to 
adhere  to  a  principle ;  that  is,  to  rest  from 
work,  and  consistently  with  it  to  call  that  day 
your  Sabbath  on  which  in  reality  you  abstain 


202  Messianic  Expectations. 

from  labor.  The  Sabbath  has  been  instituted 
for  the  sake  of  man,  not  for  the  sake  of  God  ; 
and  even  if  the  latter  were  the  case,  what  pleas- 
ure could  the  supreme  being  derive  from  your 
theoretical  adherence  to  one  day  and  practical 
observance  of  another  or  none.  It  was  further 
more  maintained  that  there  is  no  reason  why 
religious  services  should  not  be  held  on  any  day 
in  the  week  in  addition  to  the  Sabbath  service, 
and  that  therefore  no  objection  could  be  raised 
if  a  congregation  decide  to  meet  on  Sunday  too. 
The  prevailing  hypocrisy,  which  wishes  to  work 
all  seven  days  of  the  week,  and  therefore  is 
more  than  pleased  with  the  present  shameful 
state  of  affairs,  arose  against  the  truthful  and 
conscientious  stand  taken  by  the  members  of 
the  conference  in  an  informal  debate. 

The  second  point  is  the  Abrahamitic  rite  ;  in 
regard  to  which  Dr.  Kohler  of  New  York  has 
alone  expressed  himself.  Let  us  argue  this 
point  also.  The  sometimes  dangerous  opera- 
tion can  be  justified  by  two  reasons  only.  The 
one  is  that  it  is  believed  to  be  a  token  of  the 
covenant  made  between  God  and  Abraham ; 
that  it  is  firmly  believed  that  the  supreme 
being  demanded  the  surgical  and  painful  opera- 
tion of  Abraham.  That  such  has  indeed  been 
the  case  is  proven  by  no  other  evidence  than 
the  Bible.  I  have  repeated  it  frequently  that  it 
is  in  vain  to  argue  with  one  who  wishes  to  be- 


The  Pitts  burg  Conference.  203 

lieve.  Before  belief  all  arguments  become 
powerless.  The  man,  therefore,  who  has  this 
operation  performed  on  his  child,  because  he 
believes  firmly  that  God  has  made  it  the  signa- 
ture to  a  contract  between  himself  and  man  — 
such  a  person  is  perfectly  justified  in  his  act 
before  God  and  man.  I  shall  always  respect 
him  for  it. 

But  this  standpoint  has  been  given  up  long 
since.  It  appeared  too  absurd  to  think  of  God, 
the  Infinite,  demanding  such  an  operation ;  the 
religious  fort,  the  only  tenable  one,  was  evacu- 
ated, and  the  pious  intrenched  themselves  be- 
hind another  bulwark.  They  said  it  is  a  san- 
itary measure.  They  quoted  medical  authorities 
in  favor  of  it  :  they  claimed  that  not  only  had 
this  operation  been  necessary  in  former  ages,  in 
a  warmer  climate,  but  that  even  to-day  it  is  a 
preventive  of  diseases  brought  about  by  im- 
morality. 

Thus  they  build  their  arguments  upon  the 
basis  that,  as  immorality  was  to  be  expected, 
the  well-deserved  punishment  for  it  ought  to  be 
frustrated.  This  is  their  logic.  I  shall  not  speak 
now  of  numerous  cases  where  children  have  died 
on  account  of  the  operation  :  on  the  contrary,  I 
shall  accept  for  a  moment  the  standpoint  of  the 
defenders  of  the  ceremony,  namely  the  sanitary 
view  of  it.  Vaccination  is  surely  as  much  a  pre- 
ventive of  a  disease  as  can  be  claimed  for  cir- 


2O4  Messianic  Expectations. 

cumcision.  Vaccination  prevents  an  epidemic 
which  comes  over  the  individual  without  his 
fault,  and  which  in  many  cases  results  in  death ; 
while  the  Abrahamitic  rite  prevents  diseases 
caused  by  immorality,  and  not  easily  resulting 
in  death.  But  who  would  dream  of  making 
vaccination  a  religious  rite  of  high  importance  ? 
Who  would  claim  that  a  person  not  vaccinated 
could  not  be  admitted  into  a  religious  commu- 
nity, or  that  religion  is  in  danger,  if  vaccination 
is  neglected  ?  If  circumcision  is  merely  a  san- 
itary measure,  what  has  it  to  do  with  religion  ? 
We  must,  then,  grant  liberty  to  every  parent  to 
do  as  he  sees  fit.  If  he  chooses  to  have  his  child 
circumcised,  why  not  ?  We  should  hold  him  re- 
sponsible only  that  the  infant  be  not  harmed  by 
an  unskilled  practitioner.  If  the  parent  should 
choose  otherwise,  why  reject  him  or  his  children 
from  religious  intercourse  with  us  ?  Either 
standpoint  is  weak.  The  whole  ceremony  is 
to-day  but  a  matter  of  custom ;  and  indiffer- 
rence  or  some  superstitious  fear  makes  parents 
allow  it.  Such  customs  die  slowly ;  and  we 
have  no  right  to  interfere  with  the  conscience 
of  anybody.  Let  everybody  do  as  he  pleases ; 
but  it  behooves  us  to  speak  out  the  truth  and 
to  say  that  this  usage  has  nothing  to  do  with 
religion.  This  is  much  better  than  to  play  hide- 
and-seek  behind  intrenchments  which  have  been 
demolished  by  the  fire  of  logic. 


The  Pittsburg  Conference.  205 

Liberty  is  the  first  principle  of  Judaism. 
Liberty  stood  godmother  at  its  cradle  :  liberty 
has  nursed  it,  and  every  postulate  of  liberty  is 
therefore  Jewish  and  strictly  Jewish.  Grant  lib- 
erty to  all  also  in  regard  to  these  two  points, 
and  you  need  not  be  afraid  of  losing  the  firm 
ground  of  Judaism.  I  maintain  that  liberty  and 
Judaism  are  identical. 


NOTE.  —  No  sooner  had  the  preceding  twelve 
lectures  been  delivered,  and  abstracts  of  them 
published  in  the  daily  papers,  than  the  author 
was  importuned  by  numerous  letters,  pouring 
upon  him  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  to  ex- 
press himself  more  fully  in  regard  to  his  version 
of  what  modern  Judaism  is,  as  well  as  in  regard 
to  some  other  theological  questions  which  the 
writers  made  free  to  ask. 

At  that  time,  the  author  found  it  an  abso- 
lutely impossible  task  to  answer  every  one  of 
these  letters  ;  but,  in  order  to  give  to  his  corre- 
spondents some  satisfaction  at  least,  he  has 
now  added  to  this  book,  and  for  their  special 
benefit,  the  following  five  lectures  (previously 
delivered  by  him  at  different  occasions),  in  which 
they  will  find  not  only  all  the  information  which 
they  desire,  but  also  the  answers  to  their  very 
queries. 


XIII. 

MODERN  JUDAISM. 

'HE  universe  is  a  book  of  riddles,  which 
God  seems  to  have  presented  to  human- 
ity in  order  to  keep  it  busy,  and  mankind 
indeed  has  ever  busied  itself  in  solving 
them  one  after  another.  No  sooner  had  it  de- 
ciphered one  of  the  problems  contained  therein 
than  it  would  joyfully  clap  its  hands  in  a  child- 
like manner  and  look  proudly  around  as  if  to 
say :  Now,  am  I  not  a  clever  fellow  ?  and  with 
new  energy  and  without  a  moment's  rest  it 
would  turn  to  the  next  enigma. 

The  more  of  these  riddles  will  be  solved,  the 
higher  will  the  standard  of  human  civilization 
rise,  and  not  until  a  solution  shall  have  been 
found  for  the  last  problem :  not  until  the  last 
law  of  nature  shall  have  been  discovered,  will 
humanity  come  to  rest  and  to  peace  with  itself. 
It  is  indeed  both  gratifying  and  encouraging 
to  peruse  the  many  pagefuls  of  riddles  which 
mankind  has  deciphered  so  far ;  it  is  a  pleasure 
to  read  all  the  answers  so  carefully  marked  with 
indelible  ink  under  every  one  of  these  problems, 
206 


Modern  Judaism.  207 

which  before  have  puzzled  the  human  mind; 
but  must  we  not  be  astonished  the  more  when 
we  find  that  one  riddle  which  occurs  in  an  end- 
less variety,  on  almost  every  page,  has  been  left 
without  an  answer  ?  How  has  this  happened  ? 
How  could  it  have  happened  ?  Has  this  one 
riddle  been  overlooked,  or  has  it  been  intention- 
ally disregarded  ? 

For  three  thousand  years  a  nation  has  been 
living  upon  earth  ;  it  has  lived  and  prospered  in 
every  zone,  it  has  associated  with  every  nation  ; 
its  life  has  been  open  to  research,  but  even 
to-day,  as  three  thousand  years  ago,  this  nation 
has  still  remained  a  mystery  to  the  world. 
To-day,  as  three  thousand  years  ago,  the  Jew  is 
an  unsolved  riddle  to  friend  and  foe,  the  mys- 
tery of  his  existence  has  never  been  cleared  up, 
the  secret  of  his  endurance  has  never  been  di- 
vulged, the  importance  of  his  mission  has  never 
been  understood. 

When  Abraham,  the  first  of  the  Hebrews, 
appeared  in  Canaan,  he  was  a  riddle  to  the 
people  of  that  country.  They  transacted  busi- 
ness with  him,  they  allied  themselves  to  him 
in  peace  and  war ;  but  they  never  understood 
him.  The  ancient  Egyptians  never  understood 
the  children  of  Israel,  who  are  said  to  have 
sojourned  amongst  them  for  more  than  three 
hundred  years.  The  Jew  was  a  mystery  to  the 
Persians,  the  Greeks,  and  the  Romans,  and  he 


208  Modern  Judaism. 

has  remained  to  be  an  unsolved  riddle  even  to 
all  the  modern  nations  to  this  very  day.  Our 
enlightened  contemporaries  do  not  know  us ; 
they  have  no  measurement  for  our  character ; 
they  are  ignorant  of  our  best  qualities  ;  they  do 
not  know  how  we  live,  how  we  act,  how  we  feel. 
They  know  nothing  of  our  true  sentiments,  of 
our  predilections,  of  our  hopes  and  aspirations. 
They  gauge  the  nation  by  the  individual  with 
whom  chance  brings  them  in  contact.  When- 
ever they  find  a  noble  specimen  of  our  race, 
they  imagine  that  all  the  rest  is  like  it  :  when- 
ever their  acquaintance  is  low-bred,  they  think 
that  the  rest  is  no  better  than  he.  There 
stands  the  Jew,  with  his  grand  history,  with  his 
immense  literature,  still  an  enigma,  an  interro- 
gation point  in  human  society. 

There  has  never  been  an  author  or  an  actor 
who  has  been  able  to  represent  the  Jew  as  he 
is.  They  either  lionized  and  idealized  him,  or 
made  a  caricature  of  him.  Neither  Shake- 
speare's Shylock  nor  Dickens'  Fagin  is  a  true 
representation  of  a  Jew  —  nor  is  Lessing's 
Nathan.  They  all  are  creations  of  fancy,  to 
which  never  a  true  prototype  was  found  amongst 
our  race. 

The  very  same  mystery  enshrouds  our  reli- 
gion. Judaism,  too,  is  a  riddle  to  the  world. 
It  impressed  Malchizedeck  with  the  same  awe 
as  it  did  afterwards  Darius,  Alexander  the 


Modern  Judaism.  209 

Great,  and  the  Roman  Caesars.  It  gave  birth 
to  the  religions  of  to-day,  to  Christianity  and  to 
Islam ;  but  these  children  were  never  able 
to  comprehend  their  mother.  They  gazed  at 
her  with  awe,  but  even  at  their  most  advanced 
age  they  failed  to  understand  her  stern  grand- 
eur. There  it  stands  after  an  existence  of 
three  thousand  years,  after  a  continuous  strug- 
gle of  three  thousand  years,  still  as  youthful 
and  vigorous  as  ever,  but  still  the  same  mystery 
to  the  world  as  before. 

It  is  not  mere  phraseology,  and  by  no  means 
an  empty  oratorical  turn,  when  I  say  that  Juda- 
ism is  still  to-day  an  unsolved  riddle,  that  even 
in  our  enlightened  age  it  is  as  unknown  to  the 
world  as  it  was  in  the  dark  ages  of  antiquity. 
One  illustration  will  prove  it. 

Our  friend,  the  Rev.  Minot  J.  Savage,  a  gentle- 
man, as  you  all  know^  combining  profundity  of 
thought  with  rare  eloquence,  who  is  renowned 
both  for  his  deep  scholarship  and  for  the  liberal- 
ity of  his  views,  lately  addressed  his  congregation 
on  the  question,  "Which  religion  is  fitted  to  sur- 
vive?" In  a  masterly  exposd  he  willingly  con- 
ceded that  it  is  not  Christianity  which  will  sur- 
vive. "  It  is  not  the  most  beautiful  flower,"  he 
said  in  his  introduction,  "  it  is  not  the  most  val- 
uable grass,  it  is  not  that  which  is  of  the  most 
possible  service  to  man,  it  is  not  that  which  is 
ideally  best  from  man's  standpoint,  which  of 


2IO  Modern  Judaism. 

necessity  survives.  The  fittest  here  means  at 
its  best  that  which  is  best  fitted  to  its  condition. 
In  religion  it  is  that  theory  which  is  best  adapted 
to  the  advancement  of  the  people  that  will  sur- 
vive." Then  he  maintained  that  all  the  different 
religions,  Christianity  included,  will  evolve  and 
advance  side  by  side,  that  they  all  will  cast  off 
their  crude  forms,  their  superstitions,  their  fal- 
lacies, and  thus  finally  blend  into  that  one  reli- 
gion which  will  survive  as  the  fittest  of  all.  It 
was  well  said.  The  same  old  Jewish  doctrine 
of  the  Messianic  time,  of  a  time  when  all  nations 
will  acknowledge  and  adore  the  same  God,  was 
brought  forth  with  full  strength  though  in  a 
modern  garb  —  but  not  with  a  single  word  did 
the  orator  refer  to  the  one  religion  which  appar- 
ently always  has  been  best  fitted  to  its  condition  ; 
not  with  a  single  word  did  he  refer  to  that  theory 
which  has  always  been  best  adapted  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  people.  He  had  not  a  single 
word  for  the  religion  which  for  three  thousand 
years  has  withstood  the  pressure  of  time,  -the 
ilj-will,  yea,  the  persecution,  of  all  the  nations 
of  the  world,  and  which  for  three  thousand 
years  has  constantly  been  casting  off  one  crude 
form,  one  superstition,  one  fallacy,  after  another, 
without  changing  its  principle.  He  had  not  a 
single  word  for  Judaism.  And  why  not  ?  Be- 
cause he  does  not  know  it,  a  fact  for  which  we 
must  not  think  less  of  him,  nor  hold  him  respon- 


Modern  Judaism.  2 1 1 

sible.  Judaism  is  a  mystery,  and  no  one  outside 
its  pale  has  ever  been  able  to  comprehend  it. 
He  shares  his  lack  of  knowledge  of  Judaism 
with  the  rest  of  mankind. 

A  still  greater  mystery  surrounds  what  we 
now  call  "Modern  Judaism."  It  is  a  term 
which  defies  interpretation.  Modern  Judaism 
is  still  less  known  to  our  Christian  friends  than 
ancient  Judaism ;  the  most  liberal,  the  most  ad- 
vanced, the  most  erudite  of  our  contemporaries 
do  not  know  what  to  make  of  modern  Judaism. 
One  thinks  it  is  an  approach  to  Christianity,  an- 
other claims  that  it  is  the  death-rattle  of  Juda- 
ism, and  a  third  that  it  is  a  transition  to  atheism. 
And  not  one  of  these  versions  is  correct. 

Even  to  our  own  people  modern  Judaism  is  a 
term  the  meaning  of  which  is  beclouded.  Even 
the  Jews  of  to-day  do  not  know  what  to  make 
of  it,  and  we  meet  generally  with  the  most 
absurd  conceptions  of  it.  To  many  it  seems  as 
if  modern  Judaism  has  no  essentials,  no  consis- 
tency whatever,  and  is  a  trifling  and  playing 
with  outward  forms  merely.  They  think  that 
an  organ  and  choir,  the  uncovered  head,  the 
abolition  of  the  ancient  prayer-book,  and  a  Sun- 
day-Sabbath are  the  sole  requirements  of  mod- 
ern Judaism  ;  they  feel  attracted  or  repelled  by 
it  in  the  measure  in  which  their  personal  incli- 
nations favor  indifferentism  or  sensationalism. 
But  they  too  are  mistaken. 


2 1 2  Modern  Judaism. 

I  think  the  mystery  begins  with  the  adjective 
"  modern."  We  speak  of  modern  improvements, 
and  mean  by  them  all  those  contrivances  which 
have  been  invented  during  the  last  few  years 
to  save  time  and  labor,  to  make  our  surround- 
ings more  comfortable  and  pleasant  ;  we  speak 
of  modern  languages,  and  mean  by  them  all 
those  languages  which  at  present  are  spoken  by 
civilized  nations.  We  speak  of  modern  sciences, 
and  mean  by  the  term  all  those  branches  of 
knowledge  which  lately  have  risen  into  promi- 
nence. In  one  word,  the  term  modern  implies 
something  that  is  new,  and  is  always  used  in 
opposition  to  the  term  ancient. 

But  "  modern  "  does  not  qualify  Judaism  in 
this  sense.  Modern  Judaism  is  not  a  new  kind 
of  Judaism  lately  invented.  Judaism  has  always 
been  modern ;  Judaism  always  has  been  in 
advance  of  its  time. 

When  Abraham  entered  Canaan  and  pro- 
claimed the  El  Shaddai,  his  religion  was  surely 
a  modern  one.  When  Moses  appeared  before 
the  people  of  Israel  proclaiming  the  great  I  AM, 
his  religion  was  modern  Judaism.  When  King 
Solomon  built  and  endowed  the  temple,  and 
assumed  duties  which  formerly  had  been  the 
privilege  of  the  priesthood,  his  Judaism  was 
modern  Judaism.  When  the  prophets  thundered 
against  the  custom  of  offering  sacrifices,  their 
religion  surely  was  the  modern  Judaism  of  their 


Modern  Judaism.  2 1 3 

age  ;  when  Ezra  introduced  the  reading  of  the 
law,  and  when  Rabbi  Jochanan  ben  Saccai, 
after  the  destruction  of  the  temple,  substituted 
prayers  for  sacrifices,  they  were  by  all  means 
the  advocates  of  modern  Judaism.  In  fact, 
Judaism  has  changed  with  every  generation, 
and  consequently  has  always  been,  so  to  say, 
modern. 

The  advocates  of  free  religion  claim  that  all 
the  religions  of  the  world  are  honest  efforts  on 
the  part  of  men  groping  in  darkness  to  find  the 
secret  of  this  life  and  the  knowledge  of  all  that 
pertains  to  God.  But  if  this  be  true,  we  could 
as  well  begin  to  build  a  house  from  the  roof 
downwards.  The  knowledge  of  God  and  the 
disclosure  of  the  secret  of  life  is  the  beginning 
and  not  the  end  of  religion ;  Judaism  therefore 
begins  with  the  proposition  that  there  is  a  God? 
it  starts  with  disclosing  the  whole  secret  of  exis- 
tence, which  is  to  love  God  above  all,  and  our 
neighbor  as  ourselves,  and,  while  walking  in  the 
pure  sunlight  of  this  fact,  it  dispels,  step  by 
step,  degree  by  degree,  the  darkness  which 
overshadows  the  world.  Judaism  has  there- 
fore been  the  only  religion  which  could  cast  off 
one  garment  after  another,  which  could  adapt 
itself  to  the  customs,  the  usages  and  opinions 
of  each  century,  which  could  absorb  every  new 
philosophy  and  accommodate  itself  to  every 
new  theory  without  harming  or  endangering  its 


214  Modern  Judaism. 

essentials.  All  the  other  religions  lost  their 
identity  as  soon  as  they  came  in  contact  with  a 
new  truth,  and  each  of  their  sects  was  split  in 
two  as  soon  as  a  difference  of  opinion  arose 
between  them.  Judaism  always  remained  in- 
tact ;  in  Persia  it  became  Persian,  in  Greece 
Grecian,  in  Italy  Roman,  in  Germany  German, 
in  Russia  Russian,  and  here  it  has  become 
American,  but  it  remained  everywhere  strictly 
Judaism.  Thousands  of  years  ago  it  absorbed 
with  the  same  ease  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle 
as  to-day  it  absorbs  the  theories  of  Darwin 
and  Huxley.  It  remained  always  the  same 
ancient,  or,  better,  the  same  modern  Judaism. 

Our  modern  Judaism  is  not  more  or  less  than 
the  adaptation  of  Judaism  to  the  present  age, 
to  the  present  mode  of  living,  to  the  present 
standard  of  knowledge.  If  all  our  institutions, 
our  social  and  political  order  were  to-day  in  a 
settled  shape,  we  should  find  that  modern  Juda- 
ism too  would  appear  in  a  more  finished  condi- 
tion, and  we  should  be  better  enabled  to  give 
a  clear  conception  of  it.  But  the  social  and 
political  order  of  things  is  at  present  in  a  state 
of  fermentation,  the  period  in  which  we  live  is 
characterized  by  its  chaotic  aspect ;  and  float- 
ing upon  such  unstable  times  modern  Judaism 
sometimes  appears  to  us  rather  shaky. 

The  invention  and  introduction  of  steam  and 
electric  power  has  changed  not  only  the  former 


Modern  Judaism.  21$ 

order  of  things,  but  also  the  surface,  the  ge- 
ography, the  history,  even  the  philosophy,  of 
the  world,  in  such  a  degree  that  humanity  has 
not  yet  been  able  to  keep  step  with  it.  A  new 
order  of  things  is  preparing,  old  landmarks  are 
changing,  powers  small  and  unnoticed  before 
are  rising  into  prominence,  while  others  are  on 
the  decline.  The  struggle  between  labor  and 
capital  enters  every  day  into  new  phases,  com- 
munism and  nihilism  cannot  any  longer  be  talked 
out  of  existence ;  in  a  word,  the  whole  world  is 
becoming  upset  and  revolutionized.  The  old 
house  threatens  to  fall  to  pieces,  and  the  new 
house  is  not  yet  ready.  The  world  seems  to  be 
in  labor  pains,  and  still  the  hour  for  the  birth  of 
a  new  order  has  not  yet  struck. 

How  can  it  be  expected  that  Judaism  shall 
find  its  proper  form  under  such  circumstances  ? 
As  a  magnetic  needle  is  not  expected  to  stand 
still  during  a  storm,  but  gives  satisfaction  when, 
though  trembling  from  right  to  left,  it  again 
returns  for  a  moment  to  its  true  position  pointing 
northward,  thus  Judaism,  though  moving  at  pres- 
ent between  extremes,  still  points  out  the  right 
way.  When  the  storm  shall  have  subsided, 
when  the  waves  shall  have  been  smoothed  down, 
Judaism  will  be  found  again  in  its  proper  place 
and  in  a  more  settled  shape  —  the  only  religion 
fitted  to  survive. 

Speaking  of  modern  Judaism  we  must  care- 


216  Modern  Judaism. 

fully  distinguish  between  those  forms  which 
are  the  mere  garment  of  religion,  and  those 
which  pertain  to  its  body.  The  soul  of  religion 
is  still  a  creation  for  itself.  Every  religion  has 
a  soul,  a  body,  and  a  vestment  for  this  body. 
Judaism  too  has  such  a  body,  and  this  body  was 
never  found  in  want  of  a  garment.  But  in  a 
religion  destined  to  survive,  not  only  the  gar- 
ment is  cast  off  from  time  to  time,  but  the  body 
itself  changes,  as  the  human  body  does  from 
year  to  year.  In  the  measure  as  the  body  ex- 
pands the  garment  must  be  made  larger.  All 
those  ceremonies  which  usually,  but  wrongly, 
are  taken  for  the  embodiment  of  a  religion  are 
its  garment  only,  and  adjust  themselves  from 
time  to  time  to  the  body  proper.  Of  Judaism 
both  the  soul  and  the  body  are  immortal ;  the 
soul  remains  unchangeable,  the  body  assumes 
from  time  to  time  different  forms,  the  garment 
alone  is  allowed  to  wear  away  and  to  be  replaced 
by  a  new  one.  The  whole  temple  service,  with 
priests  and  sacrifices,  with  breast-plates  and 
altars,  has  been  a  mere  cloak  to  cover  the 
body  of  Judaism  in  its  youth. 

This  body  was  the  anthropology  of  that 
early  age.  God  was  represented  as  the  king  of 
the  universe,  and  although  no  visible  image  of 
the  deity  was  tolerated,  the  human  mind  of 
that  time  was  unable  to  form  a  higher  concep- 
tion of  the  Almighty.  With  the  dawn  of  a  bet- 


Modern  Judaism.  2 1 7 

ter  and  higher  conception  the  body  expanded, 
the  garment  fell  away,  and  the  measurement 
for  a  new  suit  of  clothes  had  to  be  taken. 

The  researches  of  the  last  century  have  again 
so  vastly  changed  the  body  of  our  religion  that 
a  new  garment  is  in  demand.  This  garment 
is  not  yet  ready,  it  is  making  ;  and  as  soon  as 
the  proportions  of  the  new  body  shall  be  un- 
derstood, and  a  correct  measure  of  them  shall 
have  been  taken,  the  new  cloak  will  be  finished 
at  once.  The  present  discord  in  regard  to  cere- 
monies, the  present  experimenting  with  all 
kinds  of  formulas,  the  feeling  of  discomfort 
which  as  a  consequence  pervades  at  present  our 
religious  life,  are  caused  by  the  late  expansion 
of  the  body  of  our  religion  and  our  desire  to 
cover  the  bare  places.  We  may  for  a  time  at- 
tempt to  patch  the  old  garment  wherever  it 
tears,  but  it  is  a  poor  policy,  —  love's  labor  lost. 
A  new  one  is  needed. 

As  I  cannot  define  what  modern  Judaism  is,  I 
will  at  least  direct  your  attention  to  some  great 
changes  which  have  expanded  the  body  of  Juda 
ism  and  have  therefore  caused  the  demand  for 
a  new  garb. 

One  is  the  change  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the 
origin  of  the  Bible.  For  centuries  the  belief 
had  been  current,  and  seemed  to  have  been 
the  backbone  of  our  religion,  that  the  Bible  was 
the  direct  word  of  God,  that  he  had  dictated 


2 1 8  Modern  Judaism. 

every  word  literally  to  the  authors  of  the  differ- 
ent books,  and  that  consequently  no  error  or 
mistake  could  have  occurred  therein.  If  a  pas- 
sage would  not  agree  with  our  common  sense, 
we  would  spare  no  trouble  to  interpret  it  so  as 
to  make  it  fit.  If  our  efforts  were  unsuccessful, 
we  would  simply  bewail  human  blindness  and 
our  inability  to  see  the  true  light,  but  we  would 
never  harbor  the  least  doubt  as  to  the  literal 
truth  of  the  Bible. 

All  our  ceremonies,  therefore,  adapted  them- 
selves to  this  body.  The  reading  and  expound- 
ing of  the  law  became  the  centre  of  the  divine 
service.  The  very  place  in  which  the  scroll  of 
the  law  was  kept,  the  very  parchment  upon 
which  it  was  written,  were  held  sacred.  When 
a  fire  occurred  in  a  synagogue,  people  would  risk 
their  lives  to  save  the  scrolls ;  not  because  it 
was  a  great  expense  to  them  to  obtain  new 
ones,  but  because  they  were  considered  holy. 
The  preacher  would  discuss  dark  passages  con- 
tained therein,  and  the  text  quoted  from  the 
good  book  was  used  by  him  as  a  foundation  for 
his  arguments.  No  human  power  could  shake 
that  evidence,  and  from  it  there  was  no  appeal. 

This  belief  has  now  vanished.  The  body  of 
Judaism  has  assumed  an  entirely  different  form. 
We  believe  to-day  that,  in  a  certain  degree,  all 
literature  is  inspired  by  the  divine  being.  We 
know  that  no  author  could  write  a  line  unless 


Modern  Judaism.  2 1 9 

under  divine  inspiration.  All  that  we  call 
invention,  discovery,  progress,  advancement,  is 
a  revelation.  The  new  idea  which  flashes  upon 
the  mind  of  a  great  thinker,  of  an  inventor  or 
discoverer,  the  light  which  he  perceives,  while 
the  rest  of  humanity  does  not  yet  see  it,  is  a 
revelation  of  God.  God  speaks  to  men  to-day 
as  he  has  spoken  before  to  them ;  he  speaks 
louder  and  more  distinct  to  the  one  than  to  the 
other,  but  he  speaks  always  in  the  language  of 
their  time,  in  order  to  be  understood  by  them. 
The  truth  of  a  revelation  remains  the  same, 
though  the  wording  of  it  may  become  erroneous 
on  account  of  the  medium  through  which  it  has 
to  pass. 

Thus  the  Bible  is  an  inspired  book,  but  not 
more  inspired  than  any  other.  To  us,  it  is,  be- 
sides, a  literary  treasure  accumulated  by  our 
nation,  showing  us  how  it  has  been  evolved  from 
its  earliest  days  to  the  time  when  the  last  edi- 
tion was  revised.  It  is  sacred  to  us  on  account 
of  its  antiquity,  on  account  of  the  grand  ideas 
expressed  therein  ;  but  it  has  ceased  to  be  in- 
fallible. We  have  ceased  to  cling  to  its  letter, 
though  we  accept  its  spirit.  All  that  is  true  in 
it  we  adopt ;  all  that  is  erroneous  we  discard. 
We  do  not  say  any  longer  that  a  fact  is  true  be- 
cause it  is  recorded  in  the  Bible ;  but  we  claim 
that  a  great  many  facts  have  been  embodied  in 
that  book  because  they  were  thought  to  be  true. 


22O  Modern  Judaism. 

We  know  to-day  that  the  five  books  of  Moses 
were  written  several  hundred  years  after  Moses, 
not  by  one  but  by  several  authors ;  that  they 
were  written  in  a  different  order  ;  that  they  were 
re-edited  and  revised.  Concerning  the  other 
books,  we  know  still  less,  —  even  the  names  of 
their  authors  may  be  fictitious. 

On  account  of  this  change  in  the  body  of  our 
religion,  our  present  ceremonial  will  not  fit  any 
longer.  The  whole  system  of  our  public  wor- 
ship has  ceased  to  give  satisfaction  on  account 
of  it.  A  new  garment  is  making.  A  hundred 
years  from  now  our  ceremonies  will  have  been 
changed  to  fit  the  new  condition  of  things.  If 
we  should  live  to  see  that  time,  we  should  pos- 
sibly feel  quite  uncomfortable  ;  we  should  possi- 
bly not  call  the  new  creation  Judaism ;  but 
Judaism  it  will  be  as  long  as  the  soul  remains 
intact,  which  is,  "  Hear,  Israel,  the  Lord  thy 
God  is  one  God." 

Islam  could  not  survive  the  destruction  of 
the  Koran.  Christianity  totters  to-day  on 
account  of  the  blows  which  liberal  thinkers 
direct  against  the  divinity  of  the  New  and  Old 
Testament,  and  it  will  soon  fall,  as  all  the  liber- 
als concede,  on  account  of  having  no  other  foun- 
dation but  the  one ;  but  Judaism  will  exist  for- 
ever, even  if  its  Bible  shall  be  placed  on  the  shelf 
with  other  books  of  the  same  grandeur  or  value. 
The  structure  of  Judaism  does  not  rest  upon 


Modern  Judaism.  221 

the  Bible.  Judaism  existed  before  a  letter  of 
the  Bible  was  written.  Israel's  mission  is 
indeed  not  written  upon  combustible  parchment 
and  with  a  perishable  pen  ;  it  is  written  with 
the  finger  of  God,  upon  the  indestructible  pages 
of  human  history. 

Long  before  the  authority  of  the  Bible  had 
been  shaken,  that  of  the  Talmud  had  vanished 
away.  The  Talmud  is  a  work  of  great  histori- 
cal value.  With  its  commentaries  it  is  the  pet- 
rified life  of  our  nation  during  more  than  a 
thousand  years.  It  is  difficult  to  give  a  correct 
description  of  what  the  Talmud  is.  I  can  give 
you  at  present  a  metaphor  only.  Take  the 
leading  newspapers  of  our  country,  file  them 
away  day  by  day  for  a  couple  of  hundred  years, 
bind  them  into  volumes  without  reference  to 
time  or  place,  and  then  commence  to  study 
from  these  books  the  history,  laws,  and  customs 
of  our  country.  For  a  long  time  the  opinions 
of  the  ancient  rabbies,  as  laid  down  in  the  Tal- 
mud, were  considered  valid  and  binding;  our 
time,  however,  claims  that  we  ought  to  know  as 
much  about  the  works  of  our  present  time  as 
they  knew  about  theirs,  and  as  we  may  be  in- 
competent to-day  to  legislate  for  the  past  and 
the  remote  future,  thus  have  our  wise  ancestors 
been  incompetent  to  provide  for  us.  In  a  word, 
we  claim  the  same  right  which  they  claimed  at 
their  time  to  provide  for  the  present  needs. 


222  Modern  Judaism. 

This  again  materially  changes  the  ceremonial 
part  of  our  religion.  Another  change  which  of 
late  has  taken  place  is,  that  we  have  given  up 
all  our  claims  to  political  existence.  It  took  a 
long  time  before  the  land  of  our  forefathers  was 
forgotten.  The  persecution  under  which  Israel 
suffered  for  many  long  centuries,  the  limited 
geographical  knowledge  which  was  possessed 
by  all  people,  made  us  sigh  and  long  for  a  res- 
toration of  the  old  country.  But  this  phantom 
of  political  independence  has  vanished  entirely. 
Modern  Judaism  has  torn  up  the  old  titles  which 
it  held  on  Palestine.  We  hold  to-day  that  we 
are  the  true  sons  of  that  country  in  which  we 
live,  and  which  protects  our  liberties  and  our 
rights  ;  and  if  a  few  obsolete  prayers  referring 
to  the  old  hope  still  linger  in  some  old  prayer- 
books,  it  is  merely  on  account  of  conservative 
instincts,  if  not  of  ignorance  of  their  meaning. 
It  matters,  indeed,  little  whether  the  prayers  for 
the  re-establishment  of  the  Jewish  nationality 
are  rehearsed  by  our  orthodox  brethren,  they 
are  no  longer  even  a  true  expression  of  their 
hopes. 

Modern  Judaism  is  by  no  means  indifferent- 
ism.  It  means  work.  It  acknowledges  the  his- 
toric mission  of  Israel  to  be  the  banner-bearer 
of  truth  and  to  proclaim  to  the  world  the  doc- 
trine of  one  God  and  one  humanity.  It  claims 
that  he  worships  God  the  Heavenly  Father  best 


Modern  Judaism.  223 

who  bears  in  his  heart  the  greatest  love  for  His 
children,  and  manifests  the  same  by  deeds  of 
charity.  Modern  Judaism  endeavors  to  foster  in 
the  hearts  of  the  rising  generation  the  pride  of 
being  Israelites,  by  removing  all  such  empty 
customs,  which  would  lower  us  in  the  estimation 
of  intelligent  men,  without  profiting  our  reli- 
gion. Only  he  who  believes  in  the  immortality 
of  Judaism,  and  is  proud  of  being  a  son  of  Israel, 
can  enter  with  enthusiasm  upon  the  noble  work 
in  store  for  us. 

In  a  word,  all  those  who  love  Judaism  are 
modern  Israelites  ;  all  those  who  join  in  the 
glorious  mission  of  Israel  are  believers  in  mod- 
ern Judaism. 


XIV. 
THE  SINAITIC  REVELATION. 

®H ETHER  it  is  on  account  of  the  weak- 
ness of  the  human  mind,  or  on  account 
of  its  strength,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  it  is  a 
fact  that  our  intellect  loves  to  wed  events  with 
places,  buildings,  and  objects  of  every  kind  and 
description.  The  latter,  insignificant  as  they 
are  in  themselves,  gain  by  this  marriage  at  once 
the  respect  and  the  reverence  of  the  world, 
which  otherwise  they  would  never  have  been 
able  to  command,  and  the  former  receive  in 
exchange  a  stronger  grip  upon  the  memory  of 
men  than  they  otherwise  would  have  ha'd  force 
enough  to  obtain.  Both  events  and  objects  are 
winners  by  their  union.  The  old  rusty  sword, 
for  which  the  junk-dealer  would  have  hardly 
paid  a  penny,  becomes  at  once  a  valuable  object, 
and  is  placed  on  exhibition,  because  some  cele- 
brated general  brandished  it  on  a  certain  memo- 
rable occasion.  The  site  of  the  house  where 
Benjamin  Franklin  was  born,  the  place  where 
Warren  fell,  the  tree  under  which  Napoleon 
met  with  Bismarck  after  the  battle  of  Sedan, 
224 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  225 

the  cannon  from  which  the  first  shot  was  fired 
upon  Fort  Sumter,  —  all  these  places  and  objects, 
as  well  as  a  thousand  others,  which  in  them- 
selves are  of  no  value  whatever,  rise  at  once  in 
esteem  on  account  of  the  events  connected  with 
them,  while  the  historical  fact  receives  new 
force  and  is  revived  with  new  strength  in  the 
mind  of  the  public  at  the  sight  of  these  relics. 
About  in  the  centre  of  the  peninsula  which 
stretches  between  the  horns  of  the  Red  Sea,  lies 
a  wedge  of  granite  rock  rising  from  eight  to  nine 
thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Its 
scenery  is  far  from  being  picturesque,  its  useful- 
ness to  agriculture  amounts  to  little  or  nothing; 
not  even  from  a  strategical  point  of  view  is  that 
mountain-ridge  remarkable.  Its  height  is  far 
from  awe-inspiring,  there  is  not  the  least  trace 
of  a  volcanic  eruption,  which  at  some  distant 
time  might  have  produced  such  grand  and  terri- 
fying scenes  as  Mount  Vesuvius  does  from  time 
to  time ;  not  even  a  river  of  some  importance 
is  born  within  its  domain.  This  very  mountain 
wedge,  however,  has  become  more  renowned 
and  celebrated  than  any  other  mountain  in  the 
world,  its  name  has  become  more  familiar  to  the 
human  tongue  than  that  of  any  other  place  on 
earth,  on  account  of  an  event  which  is  said  to 
have  taken  place  about  three  thousand  years 
ago  on  this  very  spot.  Who,  in  the  civilized 
world,  has  never  heard  of  Mount  Sinai  and  of 


226  Modern  Judaism. 

the  remarkable  event  to  which  its  renown  is 
due? 

When,  in  the  days  of  my  childhood,  I  read  the 
biblical  description  of  the  Sinaitic  Revelation,  I 
always  imagined  Mount  Sinai  to  be  a  cone  rising 
up  to  some  height  in  the  midst  of  the  desert, 
sloping  evenly  down  on  all  sides.  Around  it  I 
saw  the  people  of  Israel  pressing  toward  the 
fence  which  Moses  had  been  commanded  to  erect 
around  the  base  of  the  mountain,  eager  to  witness 
the  grand  scene  which  was  to  occur.  I  saw  Moses 
going  up  and  down  the  mountain,  now  convers- 
ing with  God,  now  with  the  people ;  I  beheld 
him,  the  great  man,  at  the  summit,  enveloped  in 
dark  overhanging  clouds,  from  which  lightnings 
were  bursting  forth  with  unwonted  brilliancy ; 
I  heard  the  peals  of  the  thunder  which  followed 
every  flash,  and  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire  and 
from  out  the  noise  and  turmoil  of  nature  I  heard 
the  divine  voice  give  forth  the  Decalogue  :  "  I 
am  the  Lord  thy  God,  who  have  brought  thee 
out  of  the  land  of  Egypt." 

How  I  longed  to  see  that  remarkable  spot ! 
I  imagined  that  I  could  find  and  discern  every 
feature  of  the  mountain,  that  I  -could  draw  the 
very  line  to  which  the  people  had  been  permitted 
to  approach ;  yea,  even  that  I  could  trace  the 
footprints  of  Moses  ascending  and  descending 
the  mountain. 

I  cannot  describe  to  you,  my  friends,  my  dis- 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  227 

appointment  when  for  the  first  time  I  saw  a 
true  picture  of  Mount  Sinai  and  read  a  geo- 
graphical description  of  the  place.  This  moun- 
tain range,  with  a  circumference  of  many,  many 
miles,  with  three  peaks  instead  of  one,  with 
roads  leading  from  village  to  village,  with  hills 
and  slopes,  with  ravines  and  valleys,  this  was  not 
the  Mount  Sinai  which"  I  had  imagined.  Why, 
it  must  have  taken  Moses  a  whole  day,  if  not 
longer,  to  ascend  this  mountain,  and,  according 
to  the  Bible,  he  ascended  it  twice  on  the  same 
day,  not  speaking  of  the  time  his  return  to  the 
people  must  have  consumed.  And  when  I  fur- 
thermore read  that  amongst  men  of  science  it 
is  still  an  open  question  upon  which  of  the  three 
peaks  of  Sinai  the  revelation  took  place,  my 
belief  in  the  literal  narrative  of  the  Bible  suf- 
fered a  severe  shock. 

Not  until  my  experiences  had  multiplied;  not 
until  I  had  found  that  events  wedded  to  some 
places  or  objects  do  not  stand  in  any  essential 
connection  with  them,  and  are  by  no  means  in- 
fluenced and  shaped  by  them  ;  not  until  I  had 
learned  the  lesson  that  their  union  is  only  ficti- 
tious, and  is  produced  by  our  imagination  solely ; 
not  until  I  had  observed  that  a  sword  is  a  piece 
of  iron,  no  matter  by  whom  and  on  what  occa- 
sion it  was  handled  ;  not  until  I  had  lost  faith 
in  all  relics,  did  I  recover  from  that  shock,  did  I 
understand  that  the  Decalogue  and  Mount  Sinai 


228  Modern  Judaism. 

were  not  at  all  related  with  one  another,  that 
the  one  could  not  lose  or  win  anything  by  its 
alliance  with  the  other.  The  Decalogue  is  the 
most  divine  revelation  to  the  human  mind,  no 
matter  whether  pronounced  upon  the  summit  of 
a  mountain  or  in  a  valley,  whether  during  the 
time  of  a  storm  or  in  pleasant  weather,  whether 
it  was  ratified  by  a  large  concourse  of  people, 
or  originated  in  the  soul  of  one  man  and  had 
forced  its  way  to  general  recognition  and  accep- 
tation step  by  step,  degree  by  degree. 

We  are  assembled  here  to-night  to  commem- 
orate not  so  much  the  time  and  the  place  of  an 
event,  but  the  event  itself,  which,  in  general 
parlance,  is  known  as  the  Sinaitic  Revelation. 
We  have  set  this  day  apart  as  a  festival  of  joy, 
as  a  day  on  which  to  rejoice  that  the  light  of 
reason  has  won  a  victory  over  the  darkness  of 
superstition  ;  that  mankind  has  lifted  itself  from 
the  low  standard  of  the  brute  to  the  height  of 
civilized  humanity,  by  acknowledging  the  prin- 
ciple of  law  and  order ;  and  that  the  first  step 
in  that  direction  was  taken  by  our  nation.  The 
Decalogue  in  its  entirety  originated  with  the 
Israelites  ;  or,  as  we  may  say  in  other  words,  it 
has  been  revealed  by  God  through  the  people  of 
Israel. 

To  understand  this  in  its  liberal  sense  let  us 
first  examine  what  revelation  means.  A  great 
many  people  have  lost  their  faith  in  revealed 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  229 

religion,  for  no  other  reason  than  that  they 
could  not  accept  the  coarse  interpretation  given 
to  the  word.  The  terms  revelation  and  dis- 
covery are  about  synonymous  ;  they  cover  about 
the  same  ground.  Both  presuppose  an  object 
which  has  always  been  in  its  place,  but  which 
has  not  been  seen  by  us  ;  both  presume  that  at 
a  certain  time  a  certain  hand  pushed  the  curtain 
aside  which  stretched  between  us  and  the  ob- 
ject and  barred  our  way  to  it.  There  is  only  a 
slight  difference  between  these  two  terms. 
Speaking  of  revelation  we  think  that  it  was  the 
hand  of  God  which  drew  the  veil  aside  ;  speak- 
ing of  a  discovery,  we  hold  that  it  was  the 
human  hand  which  lifted  the  cover. 

The  coarse  interpretation  of  revelation  is  that 
God,  the  invisible,  made  himself  perceptible  to 
the  eye  or  the  ear  of  some  man  or  woman  whom 
he  selected  for  that  purpose,  and  that  he  in- 
structed them  as  to  his  will  and  wishes ;  that  he 
pushed  aside  the  veil  which  prevents  man  from 
seeing  a  truth,  and  showed  him  the  path  of  life 
in  bright  daylight.  The  Sinaitic  revelation, 
coarsely  interpreted,  means  that  God  made  his 
existence  and  presence  felt  in  a  peculiar  way  to 
the  whole  people  of  Israel,  and  that  every  Israel- 
ite, —  man,  woman,  or  child,  —  though  they  could 
not  see  any  form,  heard  a  divine  voice,  out  of  the 
midst  of  a  column  of  fire,  distinctly  pronouncing 
what  are  known  as  the  Ten  Commandments. 


230  Modern  Judaism. 

The  most  refined  conception  of  the  word, 
however,  coincides  with  that  of  the  other  term, 
with  that  of  discovery :  the  divine  hand  lead- 
ing the  human  hand  to  lift  the  curtain  which 
hides  the  object  for  which  we  are  in  search. 
The  distinction  between  the  two  terms  has 
been  kept  up  theoretically  only ;  practically,  we 
have  arrive'd  at  the  conclusion  that  every  revela- 
tion has  been  a  discovery,  and  that  every  dis- 
covery is  a  revelation.  The  story  of  the  Sinaitic 
Revelation  is  to  be  taken  by  us  as  a  poetical 
description,  both  of  the  grandeur  and  impor- 
tance of  the  Decalogue,  and  of  the  impression 
which  it  made  upon  humanity  ;  and,  indeed,  the 
writer  remained  far  behind  the  actual  revolu- 
tions and  convulsions  which  these  command- 
ments have  produced.  To  what  does  the  peal 
of  thunder,  the  flash  of  lightning,  or  the  quak- 
ing of  the  earth,  amount  in  comparison  with 
the  spiritual  transformation  of  the  human  race, 
which  began  with  the  discovery  of  the  ten 
principles  upon  which  human  welfare  rests  ? 
Mankind  had  felt  the  existence  of  each  of 
them  singly  long  before,  by  instinct :  some  of 
them  were  no  news  to  the  people.  And,  in- 
deed, they  all  must  have  been  called  into  exis- 
tence with  mankind,  as  the  laws  of  gravity,  of 
electricity,  and  thousands  of  others,  must  have 
originated  with  the  objects  to  which  they  refer ; 
but  they  had  not  yet  been  understood  :  they 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  23 1 

had  not  yet  been  gathered  into  one  common 
focus.  Degree  by  degree  the  human  race  had 
to  approach  that  light;  and  finally,  a  great  man, 
born  in  a  peculiarly  gifted  nation,  was  to  tear 
away  the  last  wraps  which  were  hanging  be- 
tween it  and  mankind.  Divine  inspiration 
forced  him  to  collect  the  scattered  rocks  and 
build  of  them  a  huge  pedestal  upon  which  the 
statue  of  human  happiness  could  safely  rest. 

The  Ten  Commandments  were  not  given  to 
Israel  alone  ;  they  were  given  through  Israel  to 
the  world.  The  Ten  Commandments  are  non- 
sectarian  ;  they  hold  good  for  every  race  and 
denomination,  for  every  century,  for  the  past, 
present,  and  future,  for  every  country,  for  every 
form  of  government,  for  every  climate  and  evefy 
zone  ;  they  are  a  charter  given  to  humanity  at 
large. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments are  of  divine  origin  ;  that  they  were 
enacted  by  the  same  supreme  being  who  created 
the  world  and  framed  all  the  laws  by  which 
nature  is  governed.  They  have  received  ac- 
knowledgment these  three  thousand  years ; 
they  have  been  adopted  as  the  groundwork  of 
all  human  legislation  and  religion  :  they  have 
been  tried  at  the  poles  of  the  earth  and  at  the 
equator  ;  and  at  no  time  or  place  has  ever  a 
change  been  needed.  Not  one  of  them  has 
ever  been  abrogated  or  abolished  ;  and  what  is 


232  Modern  Judaism. 

still  a  greater  proof  of  their  divinity,  no  amend- 
ment to  them  has  ever  been  thought  of.  We 
take  some  pride  to-day  in  the  wisdom  of  the 
framers  of  the  constitution  of  this  country ; 
but  barely  one  century  has  passed  by,  when  we 
find  that  fifteen  amendments  have  been  needed, 
and  consequently  added  to  it. 

If  we  to-day  celebrate  the  great  event  of  the 
Sinaitic  Revelation,  we  do  not  celebrate  it 
as  Israelites  merely,  but  as  members  of  the 
human  family  ;  not  for  the  sake  of  commemorat- 
ing a  supernatural,  but  a  decidedly  natural 
event.  This  festival  is  not  a  mere  Jewish 
festival  ;  it  is  a  festival  on  which  the  whole 
world  ought  to  rejoice,  and  in  the  celebration 
of  which  it  will  ultimately  join. 

The  enemies  of  Judaism  have  frequently  at- 
tempted to  rob  it  of  the  fruits  of  its  labors ;  and 
the  claim  that  the  Ten  Commandments  did  not 
originate  with  the  Israelites,  but  existed  in  part 
amongst  other  nations,  is  not  a  new  one.  But 
did  not  the  law  of  gravitation  exist  long  before 
Newton  found  a  formula  for  it  ?  Did  not  the 
laws  which  govern  the  electric  current  exist 
long  before  Franklin  found  a  definition  for 
them  ?  Did  not  this  continent  exist  before 
Columbus  discovered  it  ? 

There  is  not  one  commandment  of  the  ten 
which  by  right  ought  not  to  have  governed  the 
human  race  from  its  very  start ;  but  the  grand- 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  233 

eur  of  the  Decalogue  does  not  consist  in  the 
novelty  of  its  laws,  but  in  the  completeness  of 
their  compilation  ;  and,  after  all,  only  a  few  of 
these  laws  were  known  amongst  the  nations  of 
antiquity.  The  acknowledgment  of  one  God, 
the  vanity  of  imagery,  the  necessity  of  one 
day's  rest  out  of  seven,  the  command  to  honor 
father  and  mother,  and,  above  all,  the  pro- 
hibition of  envy,  the  root  of  all  evil,  had  never 
been  pronounced  before  with  such  distinct- 
ness. 

To  sum  it  up :  the  Ten  Commandments  are 
coherent  with  humanity,  they  were  born  on  the 
same  day  when  the  human  race  sprang  into 
existence,  they  are  of  divine  make  and  bear  the 
stamp  of  the  divine  maker  on  their  face,  and  we 
Israelites  have  no  other  claim  on  them  than 
that  our  nation  has  been  the  medium  through 
which  the  light  has  been  spread  over  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  that  the  Jews  were  the 
first  discoverers  and  expounders  of  these  re- 
markable laws. 

But  if  they  are  of  divine  origin,  and  we,  their 
discoverers,  have  been  destined  to  be  their 
guardians  ;  if,  furthermore,  we  rejoice  to-day  in 
that  glorious  mission,  and  assemble  to  celebrate 
an  event  of  the  greatest  moment  ever  recorded 
in  history,  ought  it  not  be  our  sacred  duty  at 
once  to  ascertain  how  near  we  have  come  to 
the  realization  of  the  wishes  of  God  :  how  near 


234  Modern  Judaism. 

we  have  come  to  the  goal  of  human  happiness 
marked  by  these  very  laws  ? 

While  suns  and  stars,  the  roaring  thunder, 
and  the  destructive  lightning,  while  all  th'e 
forces  of  nature  obediently  and  reverently  bow 
before  their  Creator,  and  submit  to  the  laws 
which  he  has  given  for  their  guidance,  man 
alone  keeps  on  revolting  and  rebelling  against 
the  divine  will.  For  three  thousand  years  the 
Ten  Commandments  have  been  the  guide  of  hu- 
manity; but  three  thousand  long  years  have 
not  yet  convinced  the  feeble  being  called  man 
that  his  happiness  and  his  woe  depend  on  the 
obedience  or  disobedience  to  these  laws.  For 
three  thousand  years  these  beneficial  laws  have 
been  known  to  man,  and  for  three  thousand 
years  they  have  not  been  heeded. 

Ah  !  my  friends,  we  can  easily  learn  these 
commandments  by  heart,  we  can  easily  imprint 
them  upon  the  memory  of  our  children ;  but  to 
live  up  to  them  is  quite  another  thing.  What 
is  the  use  of  celebrating  festivals  in  honor  of 
these  laws,  of  acknowledging  their  divinity,  if 
in  our  daily  life  we  act  contrary  to  their  com- 
mands, if  we  are  unmindful  of  the  lesson  which 
they  instil  ? 

For  three  thousand  years  it  has  been  known 
to  the  world  that  there  is  but  one. God;  but 
behold  how  difficult  it  is  for  some  of  our 
most  enlightened  contemporaries  to  tear  them- 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  235 

selves  from  a  threefold  God  and  for  others  from 
the  shallows  of  atheism  ?  Three  thousand  years 
ago  the  law  was  promulgated,  "Thou  shalt 
have  no  other  gods  besides  me,"  and  behold 
people  are  still  worshipping  the  vanities  of  life, 
—  Gold,  Power,  Honor,  —  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
true  God.  For  three  thousand  years  mankind 
has  been  experimenting  with  the  Sabbath  ques- 
tion, and  the  wisest  and  best  men  of  all  reli- 
gions have  conceded  that  one  day  of  rest  out  of 
seven,  exactly  as  provided  by  the  fourth  com- 
mandment, is  needed  for  the  welfare  of  hu- 
manity ;  and  still  the  Sabbath  is  ignored.  You 
work  seven  full  days  in  seven  ;  and  if  it  only 
were  possible,  you  would  work  eight.  For  three 
thousand  years  the  commandment,  "  Honor 
thy  father  and  mother"  has-  been  taught  by 
every  parent  to  the  rising  generation,  but  alas  ! 
theoretically  only,  not  practically.  For  if  every 
man  had  honored  his  father  and  mother,  the 
sad  experience  would  not  press  itself  daily  upon 
us  that  fathers  or  mothers  can  raise  seven 
children,  while  as  many  children  cannot  sup- 
port one  father  or  mother  in  their  old  age. 

The  commandment,  "  Thou  shalt  not  kill,"  is 
three  thousand  years  old,  but  behold  the  most 
flourishing  factories  in  the  world  are  those 
where  instruments  of  war  are  forged,  and  the 
fat  of  almost  every  country  is  consumed  by 
large  standing  armies  of  trained  men-slayers, 


236  Modern  Judaism. 

more  courteously  called  soldiers.  "  Thou  shalt 
not  steal "  is  another  of  the  divine  laws  by 
which  human  society  would  surely  be  benefited, 
but  our  prisons  are  overflowing,  not  to  speak  of 
those  thieves  who  manage  to  evade  the  arm  of 
human  justice. 

Nor  during  these  three  thousand  years  has 
the  slanderous  tongue  been  silenced,  or  the 
envious  eye  been  blinded. 

At  first  sight  it  seems  as  if  these  ten  com- 
mandments had  been  a  failure,  because  every 
one  of  them  is  boldly  broken  by  us  ;  but  alas, 
what  fools  these  mortals  be !  We  do  not  see 
that  a  law  stands  high  as  a  law,  no  matter 
whether  it  is  obeyed  or  not ;  we  do  not  see 
that  all  human  misery,  all  our  anguish  and 
agonies  of  life,  all  our  mortifications,  are  the 
consequences  of  and  the  punishment  for  our 
disobedience  to  these  very  laws. 

Divine  laws  need  no  police  to  enforce  them  ; 
their  punishment  of  the  disobedient  rests  with 
them.  They  protect  themselves  automatically 
against  infringement. 

Let  us  therefore  not  allow  this  remarkable 
day  to  pass  by  without  reflecting  earnestly 
upon  the  grand  lesson  which  it  instils.  Ten 
commandments,  so  simple  that  every  child  can 
understand  them,  have  been  given  to  humanity. 
On  our  obedience  to  them  depends  our  happi- 
ness and  that  of  our  children.  They  are  not 


The  Sinaitic  Revelation.  237 

the  whims  of  an  irritable  God,  they  are  not  the 
property  of  one  sect  or  race  :  they  are  universal 
and  endorsed  by  common  sense  as  well  as  by 
an  experience  of  three  thousand  years.  Let  us 
not  ignore  them  :  let  us  live  up  to  their  full 
meaning.  Let  us  show  to  the  world  that  to 
observe  these  commandments  involves  no  hard- 
ship, no  self-denial,  no  abnegation  whatever. 
Let  us  prove  to  the  world  that  the  Jew  is  still 
the  guardian  of  these  laws  and  is  benefited  by 
their  strict  observation.  These  ten  command- 
ments are  the  foundation  of  Judaism,  they  will 
or  can  never  be  changed ;  but  they  are  at  the 
same  time  the  foundation  of  humanity,  and 
Judaism  therefore  will  and  must  exist  until  all 
mankind  shall  have  submitted  to  these  laws. 
It  is  with  us  to  shorten  the  time  which  lies 
between  us  and  the  age  when  all  nations  shall 
form  one  large  family,  and  the  festival  of  to-day 
calls  upon  us  to  fulfil  our  duty  ;  namely,  to  prop- 
agate these  ten  commandments  —  not  as  arti- 
cles of  creed,  but  as  living  deeds ;  not  as  theo- 
ries, but  as  practical  achievements ;  not  one 
or  some  as  we  may  select  them,  but  all  in  their 
entirety. 

As  the  summit  of  this  tabernacle  is  adorned 
with  the  two  tablets  containing  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments, as  such  two  tablets  crown  the 
edifice  of  this  temple  without,  so  must  these 
ten  commandments  tower  above  all  our  inner- 


238  Modern  Judaism. 

most  thoughts  and  outward  actions,  and  their 
strict  performance  be  the  ornament  and  the 
most  precious  crown  of  our  life. 

This  is  the  lesson  of  our  festival  to-day,  this 
the  result  which  ought  to  come  from  the  com- 
memoration of  the  Sinaitic  Revelation. 


XV. 

MOSES. 

'N  inventive  genius  is  said  to  have  con- 
structed a  machine  which  not  only  had 
the  appearance  of  a  man,  but  could  walk, 
talk,  eat,  drink,  work,  and  act  automatically 
like  a  man.  He  is  said  to  have  finished  this 
man-machine  in  the  best  style,  and  so  similar  to 
a  real  man  that,  after  it  had  been  set  in  motion, 
it  moved  amongst  men  for  years,  without  ever 
being  detected  as  a  counterfeit. 

After  a  few  weeks  of  intercourse  with  real 
human  beings,  the  man-machine,  however,  be- 
came dissatisfied  with  itself :  it  perceived  that 
its  master  had  forgotten  to  supply  it  with  a 
soul ;  and  it  wanted  a  soul.  Day  after  day, 
from  early  dawn  to  the  hours  of  night,  it  would 
plague  him  for  a  soul.  The  master  finally  tired 
of  it,  and,  wishing  to  avoid  his  tormentor,  re- 
moved to  other  quarters.  But  the  very  next 
morning  the  artificial  man  would  enter  his 
room,  with  the  words :  "  Please,  sir,  give  me  a 

soul." 

239 


240  Modern  Judaism. 

It  was  of  no  avail  that  he  removed  to 
another  city,  that  he  hid  himself  in  obscure 
villages  ;  the  machine  would  find  his  hiding- 
places,  and  was  sure  to  approach  him  with  the 
words  :  "  Please,  sir,  give  me  a  soul."  He  re- 
solved at  length  to  place  several  thousand  miles 
of  sea  between  himself  and  his  creature,  and 
went  to  Australia.  "  I  shall  now  be  at  rest," 
thought  he,  when  he  sat  down  at  the  breakfast- 
table  in  his  hotel  in  Sydney.  But  he  had 
scarcely  touched  the  meal  before  him,  when  the 
door  opened,  and  his  machine,  hat  in  hand,  and 
humbly  bowing,  respectfully  approached  him  : 
"Good  morning,  sir  ;  please  give  me  a  soul." 

The  absurdity  of  this  anecdote  lies  in  the 
impossibility  of  constructing  such  a  machine, 
of  creating  a  body  which  would  crave  a  soul ; 
but  turn  the  table,  and  you  will  find  that  al- 
most daily  in  every  one  of  us  souls  are  created 
which  constantly  follow  us  with  the  demand  : 
"  Please  give  us  a  body."  You  will  find  that  it 
is  utterly  impossible  for  you  to  escape  these 
tormentors;  that  they  will  travel  with  you, 
cross  oceans  and  deserts  with  you  ;  and  that 
there  is  nothing  left  for  you  but  to  give  them 
the  body  which  they  demand. 

There  are  souls  which  have  no  vitality  what- 
ever, and,  therefore,  die  soon  after  their  birth ; 
there  are  others,  however,  who  enjoy  a  healthier 
constitution,  and  struggle  with  one  another 


Moses.  241 

for  preference ;  and  there  are  still  others  of 
such  strength  and  vigor  that  the  man  who  is 
haunted  by  one  of  them  is  compelled  to  sacri- 
fice all  that  is  near  and  dear  to  him  —  his  time, 
his  personal  happiness,  his  family  connections, 
his  prosperity,  his  health,  yea,  often  his  life, — 
in  the  work  of  constructing  a  body  for  that  soul. 

To  speak  more  plainly,  every  idea,  every  wish, 
which,  like  a  spark  of  fire,  flits  up  in  our  heart, 
is  such  a  soul.  They  all  crave  a  body  —  realiza- 
tion. Some  of  our  wishes  die  in  the  very  hour 
of  their  birth  ;  they  are  those  foolish  wishes, 
which  either  are  of  no  momentum,  or  are  easily 
realized.  If  you  wish  for  a  new  garment,  a  new 
book,  a  new  ornament,  or  a  new  toy,  and  you 
have  the  means  of  giving  a  body  to  such  a  soul, 
you  can  easily  rid  yourselves  of  it ;  but  there 
are  wishes  which  are  of  momentum,  and  the 
realization  of  which  is  not  so  easy.  They  will 
follow  you  wherever  you  go  ;  they  will  torment 
you  constantly ;  they  will  enter  your  dreams, 
and  disturb  your  nightly  repose.  They  are 
the  wishes  which  refer  to  the  improvement  of 
our  worldly  affairs,  to  the  bettering  of  our 
present  condition,  to  the  gratification  of  our 
ambition. 

Every  man  wishes  to  enlarge  the  circle  of 
his  usefulness,  to  build  up  his  business,  to  be- 
come famous  ;  and  these  are  legitimate  wishes, 
souls  of  a  legitimate  birth.  They,  too,  crave 


242  Modern  Judaism. 

realization  ;  and  in  your  efforts  to  supply  them 
with  a  body,  your  best  years  pass  by,  —  yea, 
your  whole  life  is  spent. 

But  there  are  souls  of  still  greater  dimen- 
sions, before  which  all  the  rest  must  give  way ; 
they  are  the  great  ideas,  which  are  born  in  the 
minds  of  great  men  ;  ideas  which  encompass  the 
welfare  of  all  humanity,  and  the  realization  of 
which  therefore  is  so  difficult  that  it  seems  well 
nigh  impossible. 

Read  the  biographies  of  all  the  great  men 
who  have  ever  lived  on  earth,  who  have  spent 
their  lives  in  the  service  of  humanity,  and  you 
will  find  that  all  have  the  same  features  in 
common. 

A  grand  idea  of  universal  importance  flashes 
through  their  mind ;  a  great  soul  is  born  to 
them,  and  this  idea,  this  soul,  haunts  them  day 
and  night  through  all  their  life.  In  vain  do  they 
attempt  to  throw  the  burden  from  their  shoul- 
ders, in  vain  do  they  attempt  to  escape  their 
persecutors ;  the  idea,  craving  realization,  fol- 
lows them,  pitifully  begging  :  "  Please,  sir,  give 
me  a  body,"  and  they  must  return  to  their 
duty,  whether  they  will  or  not ;  they  must  plan, 
and  prepare,  and  form,  and  carve  a  body  for  that 
soul.  Suffering  from  the  ingratitude  of  the 
world,  despised,  ridiculed,  persecuted,  on  ac- 
count of  their  strange  work,  now  rejoicing, 
now  despairing,  now  surrounded  by  flatterers, 


Moses.  243 

now  forsaken  by  their  best  friends,  they  must 
toil  on.  The  divine  model  stands  before  them ; 
and  after  its  pattern  they  cut,  and  carve,  and 
chisel  a  body  so  great,  so  harmonious,  so  beau- 
tiful, that  the  world,  after  thousands  of  genera- 
tions, is  still  bound  to  admire  their  skill,  to 
bend  the  knee  before  their  great  genius,  to  love 
them  for  all  the  self-denials  and  sufferings 
which  they  have  undergone  so  patiently. 

Assembling  here  to-night,  celebrating  the 
Passover  Festival,  we  evidently  wish  to  pay  our 
tribute  of  admiration  to  one  of  the  greatest 
benefactors  of  humanity,  to  appreciate  his  ser- 
vices, to  manifest  the  love  which  we  bear  to  him 
on  account  of  all  his  struggles  and  self-denials. 
Although  Judaism  has  never  idolized  or  deified 
a  man,  although  it  has  ever  claimed  that  adora- 
tion is  due  to  God  alone,  we  cannot  celebrate 
this  festival  without  remembering  our  great 
teacher  and  lawgiver,  Moses  ;  the  man  who  has 
not  only  given  birth  to  one  of  the  grandest 
ideas  ever  produced  by  a  mortal,  but  who  spent 
his  whole  life  in  framing  a  body  for  this  soul,  a 
body  of  such  greatness  that  it  still  towers 
above  similar  structures  ;  of  such  strength  that 
it  has  outlived  similar  creations ;  of  such  har- 
mony and  beauty  that  other  masters  have  mod- 
elled their  works  after  its  pattern  without  ever 
reaching  the  original. 

I  do  not  propose  to-night  to  revamp  the  his- 


244  Modern  Judaism. 

tory  of  Moses  as  narrated  in  the  Bible.  I  hold 
that  the  writers  of  the  Bible,  in  their  simplicity, 
have  not  done  him  justice  enough  ;  they  wrote 
a  history  of  Moses  the  prophet,  and  not  of 
Moses  the  man ;  they  surrounded  him  with 
supernatural  miracles  and  thus  robbed  him  of 
the  best  fruits  of  his  individual  efforts.  They 
wrote  in  the  light  and  after  the  taste  of  their 
time  :  let  us  read  between  the  lines,  let  us  allow 
our  imagination  a  freer  scope,  and  let  us  review 
the  life  of  this  great  man  in  the  light  and  after 
the  taste  of  our  time.  We  shall  arrive,  how- 
ever, at  the  same  conclusions,  though  by  a  dif- 
ferent route,  namely,  that  every  great  man  is  the 
chosen  instrument  of  God,  and  that  every  great 
idea  which  ever  flashed  upon  the  mind  of  such 
a  man  is  a  revelation  of  God,  a  soul,  for  which 
he  was  compelled  to  form  a  body. 

At  so  great  a  distance  of  time,  and  without 
the  necessary  authentic  sources  to  draw  from, 
it  is  rather  difficult  to  describe  the  earlier  years 
of  the  life  of  Moses.  The  biblical  record, 
though  romantic  and  pleasing,  does  not  satisfy 
us  ;  modern  criticism  rebels  against  any  miracu- 
lous intervention  of  God  in  human  affairs.  Ro- 
mantic and  pleasing  the  story  is,  indeed,  that 
Moses  was  saved  from  a  watery  grave  by  the 
love  of  his  mother,  and  then  by  the  Princess  of 
Egypt,  that  he  was  brought  up  at  the  royal 
court,  and  thus  initiated  in  the  wisdom  of 


Moses.  245 

Egypt ;  but  it  lacks  probability.  The  princess 
would  have  shown  great  humanity,  and  would 
have  been  deserving  of  the  greatest  praise,  if 
she  had  simply  protected  the  life  of  the  found- 
ling, and  had  restored  him  to  his  family.  In  a 
country  in  which  the  spirit  of  caste  prevailed  to 
such  a  degree  as  in  Egypt ;  in  a  country  where 
customs  and  laws  prohibited  the  entrance  of  a 
member  of  one  caste  into  another,  it  must  have 
been  impossible  even  for  a  princess  to  introduce 
a  member  of  the  lowest,  most  degraded,  and 
most  despised  of  all  castes  into  the  highest  and 
most  respected,  and  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  she  had  found  the  child  years  ago  in  the 
river.  Granted  that  the  momentary  impulse  ot 
the  princess  when  she  found  the  child  had  been 
that  of  adopting  it,  we  know  only  too  well  that 
afterthoughts,  and  especially  a  lapse  of  four  or 
five  years,  change  such  impulses.  But  suppos- 
ing even  that  he  had  been  admitted  into  the 
royal  household,  how  is  it  that  the  princess 
could  not  save  her  protege  when  he  had  slain 
the  Egyptian  ?  Could  her  mighty  influence  not 
have  secured  the  best  lawyers  for  his  defence  ? 
Could  he  not  have  been  released  on  the  plea  of 
self-defence  ?  And  why  had  he  to  stay  away 
from  home,  as  the  Bible  tells,  for  forty  long 
years,  until  all  his  enemies  had  died  ?  Who 
were  all  his  enemies  ? 

Let  us  rather  take  things  as  they  occur  fre- 


246  Modern  Judaism. 

quently  and  in  reality :  let  us  divest  the  facts  of 
their  romantic  garment.  In  one  of  the  lowest 
Egyptian  castes,  in  a  nation  held  in  serfdom  by 
the  Egyptians,  a  bright  boy  is  born,  in  humble 
surroundings.  He  grows  up,  and  with  him  his 
inborn  talents,  his  inborn  genius.  He  sees 
what  others  do  not  see :  he  observes  as  others 
do  not  observe.  Does  he  need  a  schooling  ? 
No !  the  whole  universe  is  the  school  in  which 
a  genius  is  trained.  The  stars  in  the  sky,  the 
plants  on  the  earth,  the  animals  in  the  fields, 
the  murmuring  brooks,  the  surging  sea,  are  his 
teachers.  Great  men  seldom  had  teachers,  and 
never  needed  any ;  their  greatness  is  within 
them,  and  expands  from  within,  like  the  bud  of 
a  rose. 

Mediocrity  needs  teachers  to  evolve  and 
bring  forth  the  little  talent  which  it  contains, 
and  which  is  too  feeble  to  break  forth  of  its  own 
accord.  A  great  man  commands  respect  with- 
out being  a  scholar,  and  wields  influence  over 
others  by  his  personal  magnetism.  Young 
Moses  beheld  the  misery  in  which  his  nation 
lived  :  and  the  thought  flashed  upon  him,  "  Free 
thy  nation,  break  their  fetters  of  slavery ;  for  all 
men  are  alike,  equal  rights  are  due  to  all  of 
them,  and  the  enjoyment  of  freedom  is  the  first 
and  foremost  of  all  human  rights."  The  soul 
was  born,  and  immediately  craved  a  body. 

He  went  amongst  his  brethren,  preaching  the 


Moses.  247 

gospel  of  freedom,  arousing  them  to  break  their 
chains,  conspiring  as  revolutionists  would  do  in 
our  time  against  the  government.  The  Egyp- 
tians soon  learned  to  fear  the  young  partisan, 
and  persecuted  him  for  high  treason.  Then 
came  the  critical  moment.  His  own  brethren 
denounced  him.  They  were  not  yet  ripe  for  a 
general  uprising  :  they  would  not  band  together 
for  the  grand  purpose.  There  were  too  many 
party  quibbles  amongst  them ;  and  when  he 
undertook  the  part  of  a  mediator  between  them 
they  asked  him  jealously,  "Who  has  made  thee 
the  judge  over  us  ? "  They  rather  sided  with 
their  oppressors  against  him ;  and  he  was 
compelled  to  depart  from  his  native  soil,  to 
abandon  his  cherished  plans.  He  met  with  his 
first  defeat. 

Imagine,  my  friends,  a  young  man  of  genius, 
full  of  enthusiasm  for  a  great  cause,  struggling 
for  the  realization  of  a  grand  and  glorious  idea, 
endeavoring  to  form  a  body  for  the  soul  which 
once  born  in  him  would  not  leave  him  a  mo- 
ment's rest,  but  would  torment  him  with  the 
pitiful  cry,  "  Give  me  a  body."  Imagine  such  a 
young  man,  defeated  by  his  own  friends,  his  well- 
laid  plans  thwarted  by  the  indifference  and  the 
ignorance  of  those  who  were  to  be  benefited  by 
them,  his  hopes  blighted,  his  works  ruined,  he 
himself  outlawed  and  a  fugitive,  and  you  will 
understand  why  he  dared  not  return  before 


248  Modern  Judaism. 

many  years ;  you  will  understand  who  his  ene- 
mies were. 

Behold  the  difference  !  Which  of  the  two  is 
the  greater  man,  Moses  the  petted  favorite  of  a 
princess,  sneaking  away,  a  common  murderer,  or 
Moses  the  genial  party-leader,  the  apostle  of 
liberty,  the  political  fugitive  going  into  a  self- 
chosen  exile  because  of  ill-success,  leaving  his 
country  broken-hearted  and  in  despair  ?  Which 
of-  the  two  commands  your  admiration  ? 

If  you  have  ever  met  with  a  reverse  of  for- 
tune, or  with  the  ingratitude  of  those  whom  you 
loved  best ;  if  ever  your  plans  miscarried ;  if 
ever  you  have  stood  before  the  ruins  of  a  work 
the  construction  of  which  has  cost  you  so  much 
trouble  and  labor,  you  must  remember  the  feel- 
ing of  apathy  which  then  took  hold  of  you.  "  I 
shall  never  do  it  again,"  you  would  say  ;  or, 
"  This  shall  be  a  lesson  for  me,"  or  whatever 
other  expression  of  a  similar  meaning  would 
burst  from  your  angry  lips.  Moses  had  crossed 
the  desert,  he  had  found  shelter  amongst 
friends,  and  he  was  determined  to  withdraw 
from  politics  and  to  retire  to  private  life. 
He  fled  from  before  the  soul,  but  in  vain.  In 
Jethro's  cabin,  in  the  embraces  of  a  loving  wife, 
amidst  the  caresses  of  children  born  to  him,  he 
heard  the  cry  of  that  soul,  "  Give  me  a  body." 
With  every  year  the  cry  grew  louder  and  more 
pitiful.  In  vain  did  he  remonstrate  with  his 


Moses.  249 

tormentor:  "Who  am  I  to  undertake  such 
work  ?  Search  for  a  better  man !  Who  will 
ever  believe  me  again  after  I  have  failed  once  ?" 
But  the  voice  kept  on  crying ;  the  fire  kept  on 
burning,  and  the  thornbush  was  never  con- 
sumed. He  struggled  against  it  with  all  his 
might,  but  in  vain.  He  had  to  submit ;  and  he 
entered  again  upon  the  field  of  his  former  activ- 
ity, this  time  to  be  successful  and  victorious. 

The  Bible  tells  us  that  he  had  lived  with 
Jethro  for  forty  years,  but  it  contradicts  itself 
on  the  spot  by  the  statement  that  his  second 
child  was  still  a  babe  when  he  returned  to 
Egypt ;  on  the  other  hand,  it  makes  it  appear  as 
if  his  transactions  with  Pharao,  the  ten  plagues 
included,  lasted  only  a  few  months. 

The  Bible,  however,  grand  as  it  is  in  general 
outlines,  is  unreliable  as  to  details ;  it  cares 
little  for  the  correctness  of  numbers  or  dates. 

We  may,  therefore,  accept  it  as  very  likely 
that  Moses  had  remained  with  Jethro  a  few 
years  only,  but  that  between  his  return  to 
Egypt  and  the  liberation  of  the  Israelites  a 
long  period  of  years  must  have  elapsed. 

He  returned  to  Egypt  better  equipped  and 
fitted  for  his  mission  than  he  ever  had  been  be- 
fore. The  idea  of  freeing  his  nation  had  already 
assumed  a  more  concrete  form:  it  had  grown 
larger,  broader,  deeper.  The  light,  had  burst 
upon  him  that  liberty  cannot  be  cut  to  pieces 


250  Modern  Judaism. 

and  be  dealt  out  in  slices,  one  at  a  time.  He 
knew  now  that  he  must  grant  either  full  liberty  or 
none,  that  to  be  free  politically  without  being 
free  morally  is  an  impossibility.  He  proclaimed, 
therefore,  now,  both  liberty  of  body  and  of  soul, 
both  political  and  moral  freedom.  He  was  now 
ready  to  break  both  the  fetters  of  serfdom  and 
the  bonds  of  superstition.  He  now  stepped 
before  his  nation  proclaiming  one  God  and  one 
common  brotherhood. 

Misery  and  exile  had  not  crushed  him;  on 
the  contrary,  they  had  strengthened  him;  his 
genius  had  grown  and  its  wings  spread  all  over 
the  moral  horizon,  covering  and  overshadowing 
every  branch  of  legislation. 

He  began  his  work  anew.  Again  he  at- 
tempted to  rouse  his  brethren,  again  he  encoun- 
tered their  ignorance  and  indifference ;  but  lo 
and  behold  !  he  made  the  king  of  Egypt  listen. 

It  matters  little  how  he  accomplished  his 
task ;  whether  by  the  aid  of  supernatural  mira- 
cles, or  by  political  manoeuvring ;  whether  all 
the  Israelites  quitted  Egypt  in  one  night,  or 
whether  they  left  it — as  is  more  probable  — 
in  single  swarms  and  at  different  times ; 
whether  they  remained  for  forty  years  in  the 
desert,  or  whether  it  took  forty  years,  more  or 
less,  before  the  different  swarms  of  emigrants 
were  safely  settled  in  one  part  of  Palestine ; 
whether  two  and  a  half  millions  of  Israelites 


Moses.  251 

departed  from  Egypt,  or  a  number  not  so  large 
as  that. 

All  this  matters  little  ;  the  fact  remains  that 
the  man  Moses  was  the  soul  of  the  whole 
undertaking,  that  he  organized,  civilized,  and 
colonized  a  nation  of  slaves,  that  he  elaborated 
a  constitution  resting  upon  the  principle :  One 
God  and  one  humanity.  One  God,  the  common 
father  of  mankind  —  all  humanity  one  large 
brotherhood,  every  member  entitled  to  enjoy 
equal  rights,  and  an  equal  share  of  freedom  and 
personal  happiness. 

This  was  the  body  which  he  created  for  his 
great  idea,  but  not  so  easily  was  the  work 
accomplished  as  described.  Revolt  after  revolt 
had  to  be  subdued,  many  a  defeat  had  to  be 
encountered,  many  a  reverse  of  fortune  had  to 
be  borne  by  him,  and  here  behold  the  greatness 
of  the  man  Moses.  He  has  taken  the  lowest 
and  most  miserable  of  all  Egyptian  castes,  he 
has  torn  it  from  the  grasp  of  a  mighty  empire, 
he  has  colonized  it  in  a  country  thickly  settled 
with  valiant  foes, — he,  all  alone,  without  the  help 
of  any  human  being.  But  he  has  done  still  more  ; 
he  has  raised  within  a  few  years  this  degraded 
nation  to  the  height  of  intelligence ;  he  has 
made  it  the  body-guard  of  the  eternal  truth 
that  there  is  but  one  God,  a  God  whom  no 
human  eye  can  see,  no  human  ear  can  hear,  no 
human  finger  can  touch,  but  who  nevertheless 


252  Modern  Judaism. 

was,  is,  and  will  be,  —  a  God  who  has  created 
the  world,  preserves,  and  governs  it ;  he  has  en- 
dowed this  nation  with  laws  before  which  after 
three  thousand  years  the  whole  civilized  world 
still  bows  in  reverence ;  he  has  proclaimed 
through  this  nation  to  the  whole  world  that  all 
men  are  born  free  and  equal,  and  that  their  life, 
liberty,  and  property  must  be  kept  sacred  for- 
ever. 

All  this  may  appear  trivial  to  us,  who  have 
been  brought  up  amidst  the  blessings  of  his  civ- 
ilization, who  have  inherited  his  doctrines  as  a 
matter  of  course,  who  are  accustomed  to  the 
liberty  proclaimed  by  him  ;  but  three  thousand 
years  ago,  when  humanity  was  still  enshrouded 
by  the  night  of  superstition  ;  when  idolatry  of 
the  coarsest  character  was  still  prevalent  ; 
when  the  right  of  the  strongest  was  the  only 
right  maintained  at  the  point  of  the  sword  ; 
when  slavery  was  sanctioned  by  law  and  cus- 
tom,— at  that  time  his  laws  and  proclamations 
must  have  astonished  the  world ;  and  I  do  not 
wonder  at  all,  that,  as  it  has  been  claimed, 
the  mountains  trembled  and  the  earth  quaked 
when  he  sent  forth  his  message  of  universal 
freedom  and  equality,  his  proclamation  of  one 
God  and  one  humanity. 

Moses,  like  all  great  men,  died  a  poor  man. 
The  services  of  great  men  can  never  be  re- 
warded; and  great  men  do  not  ask  for  com- 


Moses.  253 

pensation.  Great  men  are,  so  to  say,  slaves. 
Moses,  the  proclaimer  and  champion  of  liberty, 
was  a  slave  himself.  He  was  the  slave  of  the 
grand  soul  for  which  he  was  forming  a  body. 
All  worldly  considerations  vanished  before  his 
grand  task ;  they  were  too  trivial,  too  diminu- 
tive, by  the  side  of  his  great  work.  He  had  not 
time  to  think  of  his  family. 

Neither  was  Moses  ambitious.  Not  even  the 
spot  is  known  upon  which  he  closed  his  eyes 
for  the  last  slumber.  Great  men  are  not  ambi- 
tious ;  their  own  self  dwindles  into  nothing  by 
the  side  of  the  work  for  which  they  are  commis- 
sioned. As  they  are  forgetful  of  their  family 
affairs  so  they  are  forgetful  of  themselves. 

But,  though  no  monument  has  ever  been 
erected  in  his  honor,  though  no  festival  ever 
was  instituted  to  perpetuate  his  memory,  he 
has  never  been  forgotten.  The  names  of  great 
men  are  written  with  fiery  letters  in  the  book 
of  life  ;  and  there  we  find,  also,  the  name  of 
Moses,  with  the  qualification  —  the  servant  of 
God,  the  slave  of  his  divine  mission. 

Of  late  a  great  deal  has  been  spoken  and 
written  about  the  mistakes  of  Moses.  Now,  my 
friends,  why  should  he  not  have  made  mistakes  ? 
Why  should  he  have  been  an  exception  ?  Per- 
haps he  has  made  more  mistakes  than  you  and 
I  and  Ingersoll  dream  of.  Does  the  painter  not 
erase  many  times  a  line  which  he  has  drawn, 


254  Modern  Judaism. 

before  he  finds  the  one  which  suits  his  purpose  ? 
Does  the  sculptor  not  model  and  remodel  a  bust 
before  he  is  satisfied  with  its  form  ?  After  all, 
the  mistakes  with  which  he  is  burdened  are 
not  at  all  his  mistakes  ;  they  were  the  mistakes 
of  his  biographers,  the  mistakes  of  historians  of 
a  much  later  period.  But,  supposing  that  they 
were  his,  what  are  they  by  the  side  of  the  great 
work  which  he  left  behind  him  ? 

Many  men  have  entered  upon  their  public 
career  amidst  the  applause  and  the  acclamation 
of  the  people  amongst  whom  they  lived.  At 
an  eventful  crisis  they  have  made  themselves 
heard,  on  the  crest  of  a  political  wave  they 
have  been  lifted  into  prominence,  but  soon  they 
have  been  carried  away  by  the  same  wave,  and 
quickly  forgotten.  Not  so  Moses.  He  has 
entered  upon  his  career  distrusted  by  all,  un- 
known to  all,  the  son  of  Amram ;  but  his 
genius  has  cleared  the  way  before  him  ;  he  has 
compelled  his  adversaries  to  acknowledge  his 
superiority,  his  talent,  his  skill,  his  faithfulness, 
and  his  integrity ;  and  it  is  not  before  the  end 
of  his  life  that  we  find  the  nation  listening  to 
every  one  of  his  words,  and  obedient  to  every 
one  of  his  dictates.  This  fact,  if  no  other, 
shows  to  us  that  he  must  have  been  a  great 
man  indeed. 

May  the  review  of  the  eventful  life  of  Moses, 
our  great  teacher  and  lawgiver,  warm  your 


Moses.  255 

hearts  to  love  and  revere  not  only  his  memory, 
but  the  work  which  he  has  constructed.  May 
it  fill  your  hearts  with  pride  when  you  think  of 
it  that  you  are  the  guardians  of  his  wonderful 
creation,  that  you  are  to  preserve  it,  and  to  de- 
fend it  against  its  foes. 

Be  true  to  your  mission  as  he  has  been  to 
his,  and  whenever  an  idea  of  general  usefulness 
is  born  unto  you,  whenever  such  a  soul  asks 
you  to  supply  it  with  a  body,  listen  to  it ; 
do  not  shirk  your  duty ;  do  not  attempt  to 
flee  from  before  it,  but  accept  gratefully  the 
divine  mandate,  and  devote  yourselves  to  the 
task  with  all  the  energy  that  is  within  you. 
Our  great  Emerson  says  :  "  The  one  thing  of 
value  in  the  world  is  an  active  soul." 


XVI. 
PROPAGATION   OF    RELIGION. 

'LTHOUGH  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  of  America  does  not 
recognize  any  distinction  of  creed  what- 
soever, and  although  objections  have  been  fre- 
quently raised  to  the  appellation  "  Christian 
country  "  whenever  this  term  has  been  applied 
to  the  United  States,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact 
that  after  all  this  country  is  at  present  a 
"Christian  country."  Although  a  large  num- 
ber of  Israelites  are  sharing  with  their  fellow- 
citizens  all  the  rights  and  privileges  which  this 
country  so  liberally  grants  to  its  inhabitants ; 
although  a  number  of  Mohammedans,  crowds  of 
Buddhists,  thousands  of  pagans,  and  even  an 
uncounted  multitude  of  pantheists  and  atheists, 
do  dwell  upon  this  hospitable  continent,  enjoy- 
ing without  molestation  the  rights  of  life,  liberty, 
and  of  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  —  there  is  no 
gainsaying  that  their  combined  number  is  so 
inconsiderably  small  in  comparison  with  that  of 
their  Christian  neighbors,  which  is  so  over- 
whelmingly large,  that  it  would  be  folly  to  close 
256 


Propagation  of  Religion.  257 

one's  eyes  to  the  fact.  Therefore  I  cannot  but 
call  this  country  a  Christian  country,  on  account 
of  the  vast  majority  of  Christians  living  therein. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  furthermore,  that  to  a 
great  extent  our  present  civilization  has  evolved 
from  Christian  principles  ;  we  are  surrounded 
from  all  sides  by  Christian  customs  and  usages  ; 
our  public  schools,  although  they  are  claimed  to 
be  non-sectarian,  are  enshrouded  by  an  atmos- 
phere of  Christian  tendencies  ;  take  all  in  all", 
and  you  must  concede  that  Christianity  is  a 
factor  in  life  which  it  would  be  unwise  to  over- 
look in  our  calculations. 

It  may  have  occurred  to  many  of  you  as  an 
uncalled-for  assumption  on  my  part  that  I  have 
touched  of  late  so  frequently  upon  a  topic 
which  so  far  has  always  been  a  noli  me  tangere 
(touch  me  not)  of  Jewish  pulpit  oratory ;  namely, 
that  I  have  drawn  Christianity  into  my  discus- 
sions. On  account  of  former  persecutions  the 
Israelites  had  inherited  a  certain  timidity,  and 
had  become  afraid  to  speak  of  the  domineering 
religion,  and  to  acquaint  themselves  with  its 
teachings.  The  name  of  its  founder  was  rarely, 
if  ever,  pronounced  in  a  Jewish  synagogue,  and 
it  appeared  not  only  unnecessary,  but  even  dan- 
gerous, to  lay  open  the  weak  points  of  Chris- 
tianity or  to  dwell  on  its  strong  ones.  The 
consequence  of  this  timidity  was  that  we  have 
remained  absolutely  ignorant  in  regard  to  Chris- 


258  Modern  Judaism. 

tian  teachings,  and  that  therefore  we  have  be- 
come unable  to  discuss  with  our  neighbors  and 
friends  the  differences  of  our  inherited  creeds. 
Neither  were  we  prepared  to  defend  ourselves, 
nor  could  we  lend  a  helping  hand  to  our  more 
liberal  friends  to  root  up  old  superstitions. 
While  on  every  Sunday  thousands  of  Christian 
pulpits  have  instructed  large  congregations  as 
to  the  tenets  of  Judaism,  with  more  or  less 
accuracy ;  while  the  Christian  clergy  have  made 
all  possible  efforts  to  enlighten  their  parishioners 
as  to  what  Jews  think  and  believe,  the  Jewish 
pulpit  has  remained  culpably  silent  and  the  Jew- 
ish clergy  have  cowardly  shirked  their  duty.  I 
am  well  aware  of  it  that  when  I  first  touched 
the  sore  spot  many  of  my  friends  feared  that 
lectures  on  such  topics  would  create  an  ill-feel- 
ing against  us  in  the  community  ;  but  they  had 
forgotten  that  times  have  changed.  Religious 
intolerance  is  to-day  in  its  last  stages  of  decay, 
and,  thanks  to  God,  it  has  entirely  disappeared 
in  this  blessed  country.  The  pen  has  become 
mightier  than  the  sword,  and  the  press  a  more 
powerful  engine  than  the  cannon.  The  opinion 
of  a  man  is  respected  provided  he  enters  upon 
a  research  with  love  for  truth,  and  unbiassed  by 
prejudice.  If  we  are  to  stand  the  pressure  of 
Christian  influence  which  is  surrounding  us  from 
all  sides,  it  would  be  poor  policy  on  our  part  to 
close  our  eyes  against  it :  on  the  contrary,  it  is 


Propagation  of  Religion.  259 

advisable  to  familiarize  ourselves  with  it,  to 
examine  it  with  the  greatest  care,  and  to  show 
our  friends  at  the  same  time  what  our  opinions 
are  concerning  it.  If  Christianity  of  to-day  is 
of  a  friendly  disposition  toward  us,  let  us  im- 
prove such  friendship  by  the  better  knowledge 
of  the  friend ;  if  it  should  be  inimical  to  us, 
well,  then,  how  could  we  better  protect  ourselves 
than  by  a  thorough  acquaintance  with  the  forces 
which  our  opponent  can  lead  against  us?  Let 
us  therefore  enter  courageously  upon  such  re- 
searches, but  with  love,  unhampered  by  preju- 
dice, and  by  all  means  with  the  respect  and  the 
courtesy  which  are  due  to  the  feelings  of  a 
neighbor  and  friend. 

In  the  course  of  some  other  lecture  I  have 
asserted  that  paganism  has  never  cared  to 
spread  its  religion ;  that,  to  quote  Gibbon  here, 
all  religions  appeared  to  the  masses  as  equally 
true,  to  the  philosophers  as  equally  absurd,  and 
to  the  government  as  equally  useful.  Pagan- 
ism, I  said,  lacked  principles,  a  code  of  ethics, 
and  a  system,  and  therefore  it  has  been  unfit  to 
impress  the  outsider.  It  could  conquer,  but  not 
propagate  itself.  I  have  furthermore  asserted 
that  propagation  of  religion  originated  with 
Judaism,  but  that  it  was  carried  on  negatively ; 
that  Judaism  merely  taught  its  lesson  by  exam- 
ple ;  and  that,  though  it  was  always  ready  to 
receive  a  proselyte,  provided  he  would  join  the 


260  Modern  Judaism. 

fold  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  goodness  of  its 
cause,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  temporal  benefit,  it 
never  invited  the  stranger,  nor  did  it  ever,  as  a 
rule,  make  converts  by  force  or  persuasion.  The 
belief  that  God  had  made  a  covenant  with  their 
ancestors,  to  be  binding  for  all  future  descen- 
dants, made  it  obligatory  for  them  to  teach  the 
articles  and  clauses  of  this  covenant  to  their 
children.  Judaism  was  propagated  directly  only 
among  the  rising  generation ;  indirectly,  how- 
ever, it  was  spread  by  the  stubbornness  with 
which  the  Jews  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
gods  of  other  nations,  or  to  permit  any  repre- 
sentation of  the  divinity  to  defile  their  country. 

Christianity  was  the  first  religion  which  prop- 
agated itself  in  a  direct  manner,  which  adopted 
an  aggressive  policy  in  place  of  the  defensive 
attitude  of  Judaism  ;  and  the  marvellous  success 
with  which  its  efforts  were  crowned  are  to  a 
great  extent  due  to  this  change  of  tactics. 

The  success  of  Christianity  is  frequently  used 
as  an  argument  to  prove  its  intrinsic  truth. 
"  Look  at  the  enormous  success  of  Christian- 
ity," say  its  adherents.  "  Could  it  have  been 
achieved  if  the  hand  of  God  had  not  directly 
assisted  it  ?  Look  at  the  success  ;  could  it  have 
been  achieved  if  its  founder  had  not  been  a 
divine  being  ?  Look  at  the  success ;  could  it 
have  been  achieved  if  its  ethics  and  principles 
had  not  been  sound  and  true,  and  superior  to 


Propagation  of  Religion.  261 

those  of  Judaism  ? "  Almost  nothing  is  known 
authentically  of  the  origin  of  Christianity ;  but 
whenever  the  identity  of  its  founder  or  the 
reliability  of  its  first  sources  is  questioned,  we 
receive  always  the  same  answer,  "  Look  at  the 
success." 

Success,  however,  proves  nothing.  Success 
is  a  product  of  too  many  factors  to  prove  by  it 
the  existence  of  a  certain  special  number  in  its 
formation.  Thirty-six  is  as  equal  to  4X9  as  it 
is  to  3X12,  6x6,  or  3X3X2.X2 

Besides  to  its  aggressive  policy,  the  success 
of  Christianity  is  due  to  the  democracy  of  its 
principles.  No  matter  how  we  may  differ  in 
our  views  in  regard  to  its  founder,  we  must 
acknowledge  that  Christianity  has  turned  many 
Jewish  theories  into  practical  shape,  that  it  has 
opened  the  avenues  through  which  Jewish 
morals  and  Jewish  ethics  could  exert  their 
civilizing  influence  upon  the  pagan  world. 

While  Judaism,  proudly  holding  in  its  hand 
the  divine  truth,  said  to  the  nations  of  old, 
"  Come  to  me,  if  you  wish  to  walk  by  its  light," 
Christianity  carried  it  to  them,  and  by  persua- 
sion and  often  by  force  compelled  them  to  accept 
it,  even  against  their  will.  Judaism  had  pro- 
claimed to  the  world  the  doctrine  that  there  is 
but  one  God,  the  common  father  of  all  man- 
kind ;  but  Christianity  in  its  youth  has  practi- 
cally stooped  down  to  the  ill-treated,  despairing 


262  Modern  Judaism. 

slave,  and  has  told  him  that  he  was  the  equal  of 
his  master,  and  has  treated  him  as  such.  The 
early  days  of  Christianity,  the  time  before  it 
had  defiled  itself  with  pagan  absurdities,  will 
always  command  the  admiration  of  all  lovers  of 
humanity.  These  early  days  are  the  period 
when  it  laid  the  foundation  to  its  future  great- 
ness, and  even  to-day  it  can  draw,  and  does 
draw,  upon  the  resources  which  it  had  accumu- 
lated during  the  first  three  centuries  of  its 
existence. 

To  account  for  the  marvellous  growth  of 
Christianity,  we  must  familiarize  ourselves  with 
the  conditions  of  that  peculiar  age. 

Paganism  had  outlived  its  usefulness.  The 
belief  in  many  gods  had"  lost  its  hold  upon  the 
masses,  and  idol-worship  had  fallen  into  disre- 
pute. The  past,  so  to  say,  had  disappeared,  and 
the  future  was  not  yet  there.  The  struggles  of 
the  Jews,  both  with  Greeks  and  Romans,  had 
directed  the  attention  of  the  world  upon  them  ; 
Jewish  ethics  had  commanded  the  respect  of  the 
most  profound  thinkers  of  antiquity,  the  Bible 
had  been  translated,  and  the  educated  classes 
had  become  familiar  with  its  sublime  lessons. 
Politically,  a  large  empire  had  been  formed  out 
of  the  countries  of  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa, 
extending  from  India  to  Great  Britain,  and  from 
the  Arabian  desert  to  the  banks  of  the  Danube. 
Republican  virtue  had  become  extinct,  and  a 


Propagation  of  Religion.  263 

wrangle  between  despots  was  now  constantly 
disturbing  the  peace  of  the  world.  Corruption 
was  flourishing  at  the  capital  and  the  provincial 
centres  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  extortion  and 
degradation  were  its  natural  consequences.  The 
social  atmosphere  was  still  more  unhealthy. 
There  were  no  middle  classes  :  the  free  Roman 
citizen  on  the  one  hand,  the  slave  on  the  other. 
To  every  free-born  Roman  ten  slaves  could  be 
counted  on  an  average.  The  small  class  of  the 
freedmen  could  not  adjust  the  scales.  Years  of 
prosperity  had  produced  an  extravagance  and  a 
luxury  of  which  we  can  hardly  form  a  concep- 
tion. We  turn  with  disgust  from  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  Lucullian  repast,  and  our  better  feeling 
revolts  against  the  obscene  features  of  a  Roman 
banquet.  Dissipation  on  the  one  hand  and 
misery  on  the  other  had  made  life  unbearable ; 
and  suicides  were  of  daily  occurrence.  Chris- 
tianity found  the  pagan  world  rotten  to  the  core, 
and  thus  a  field  of  work  as  large  as  it  was  prom- 
ising to  yield  a  rich  harvest  to  the  one  who 
would  undertake  to  cultivate  it. . 

If  Christianity  had  been  nothing  else  but  a 
creed,  a  religious  sect,  which  would  speculate 
upon  and  discuss  theological  problems  and 
theories  ;  if  it  had  established  its  church  for  no 
other  purpose  than  to  pray  and  sing  therein  ;  if 
its  preachers  had  been  merely  paid  officials, 
hired  to  entertain  the  visitor  with  flashes  of 


264  Modern  Judaism. 

oratory,  it  would  never  have  prospered ;  the 
waves  of  time  would  have  swept  it  away  with 
the  rest  of  philosophical  schools  which  abounded 
at  that  time.  But  Christianity  in  its  early  days 
was  more  than  a  religious  denomination  ;  it 
was  a  political  party,  a  socialistic  organization  ; 
and  its  first  efforts  were  flavored  even  with 
nihilism. 

The  Essenes,  from  which  sect  it  had  sprung, 
were  pessimists  of  the  first  order.  They  did 
not  believe  in  the  future  progress  of  humanity, 
but  rather  that,  as  the  conditions  of  the  time 
had  become  apparently  unbearable,  the  whole 
world  was  on  the  eve  of  destruction,  and  that  all 
would  soon  perish.  Why  should  they  therefore 
propagate  their  race  by  marriage,  or  hoard  up 
capital  for  future  use  ?  The  Essenes  formed  a 
socialistic  brotherhood ;  they  shared  all  property 
in  common,  and  did  not  marry.  To  swell  their 
numbers  they  were  compelled  to  rely  upon 
proselytes.  They  would  approach  a  man,  con- 
vince him  of  the  soundness  of  their  teachings, 
and  initiate  him  into  their  order.  The  first 
Christians  were  Essenes.  They  opposed  mar- 
riage, despised  property,  and  were  all  in  all  a 
communistic  brotherhood.  Starting  with  the 
idea  that  their  beloved  master  would  soon  re- 
turn to  hold  judgment  in  a  world  filled  with  de- 
pravity, the  first  Christians  considered  it  their 
duty  to  inform  the  whole  world  of  the  threaten- 


Propagation  of  Religion.  265 

ing  catastrophe,  in  order  to  save  as  many  as 
possible  from  the  punishment  which  the  justice 
of  God  was  expected  to  mete  out  on  that  awful 
day.  As  they  could  reach  only  in  rare  cases 
the  ear  of  the  wealthy,  they  addressed  them- 
selves to  the  poor,  to  the  slaves,  to  every  one 
who  was  dissatisfied  with  the  present  state  of 
affairs  and  was  a  sufferer  from  oppression.  It 
was,  indeed,  good  news  and  glad  tidings  to  this 
class  of  people  when  they  were  told  with  all 
sincerity  that  the  whole  social  order  would  be 
soon  reversed,  that  the  poor  should  become 
rich  and  the  rich  poor,  that  they  should  soon 
enjoy  eternal  happiness  while  their  proud  mas- 
ters should  suffer  the  well  deserved  punish- 
ment. 

For  almost  three  hundred  years  this  hope  was 
held  out  to  the  convert ;  for  almost  three  hun- 
dred years  the  return  of  the  master,  the  Mes- 
siah, the  son  of  God,  was  daily  expected ;  and 
all  conversions  were  made  under  the  promise 
that  whosoever  would  join  the  new  sect  would 
not  only  escape  the  wrath  of  God  on  the 
day  of  judgment,  but  inherit  eternal  bliss. 
Every  new  convert  became  immediately  a 
missionary ;  for  he,  too,  had  friends  whom  he 
loved,  whom  he  could  impress  with  his  hopes 
and  fears,  and  whom  he  wished  to  be  saved  on 
the  day  of  judgment,  and  to  share  with  him  the 
benefactions  which  the  new  creed  offered. 


266  Modern  Judaism. 

The  entrance  into  the  new  society  was  made 
as  easy  as  possible  ;  the  instructions  were  few  ; 
the  ceremonies  strange  and  impressive ;  and 
the  persuasion  of  the  missionaries  so  powerful, 
and  so  well  calculated  to  appeal  to  the  hopes 
and  fears  of  every  individual,  that  the  organiza- 
tion could  not  but  grow  from  day  to  day. 

The  new  sect  was  at  that  time  as  vigor- 
ous and  outspoken  in  its  detestation  of  idol- 
worship  as  were  the  Jews  ;  but  it  awakened  the 
distrust  of  the  government  still  more  by  its 
attempts  to  revolutionize  the  whole  social  order 
of  the  time.  As  I  have  said  before,  the  early 
Christians  formed  small  communities,  the  mem- 
bers of  which  shared  all  in  common.  They  de- 
tested wealth  and  loved  poverty  ;  they  not  only 
preached  abolition  of  slavery,  but  practised 
it.  A  convert  to  Christianity  would  at  once 
set  his  slaves  free  ;  and,  whenever  a  member 
had  become  a  slave  through  the  changing  for- 
tunes of  war,  his  ransom  was  immediately  paid 
by  the  next  Christian  congregation.  Nor  did 
the  early  Christians  approve  of  war.  Chris- 
tianity originally  abhorred  it ;  and  not  before  it 
had  commenced  to  degenerate  would  it  allow 
its  -members  to  carry  arms.  These  communis- 
tic tendencies  could  not  escape  the  eye  of  the 
government.  The  party  in  power  was  rather 
inclined  to  leave  well  enough  alone  ;  it  disliked 
social  experiments,  and  therefore  attempted  to 


Propagation  of  Religion.  267 

suppress  trie  rising  danger  by  force.  A  country 
in  which  the  majority  of  inhabitants  were  slaves, 
who  were  held  in  submission  merely  by  the 
weight  of  custom,  must  have  been  hurt  in  its 
most  vulnerable  parts  by  the  proclamation  of 
so  dangerous  a  doctrine  as  that  preached  and 
practised  by  the  Christians. 

It  has  been  experienced  more  than  a  hundred 
times,  that  ideas  cannot  be  killed  by  the  sword, 
that  the  blood  of  martyrs  is  the  best  fertilizer 
for  a  new  idea  to  grow  upon,  and  that  they  will 
spread  the  quicker  the  greater  the  zeal  is  to 
suppress  them.  On  account  of  persecution  the 
early  church  was  compelled  to  seek  secrecy ; 
but  nothing  is  more  attractive  than  secrecy. 
People  do  not  care  for  things  which  every  one 
can  have ;  they  crave  the  forbidden  fruit.  A 
sect  which  is  granted  the  liberty  of  proclaiming 
its  tenets  by  full  daylight  will  never  prosper; 
after  the  novelty  of  the  thing  is  over,  it  will 
sink  back  into  oblivion.  But  no  sooner  is  a  sect 
persecuted  than  the  danger  surrounding  it 
works  like  a  charm  and  attracts  sympathetic 
friends;  no  sooner  is  a  sect  compelled  to  hide 
itself  from  before  the  eye  of  the  government, 
than  it  grows  in  membership.  The  secrecy 
which  was  forced  upon  the  early  church  became 
the  cause  of  its  success.  It  spread  not  only  in 
spite  of  it,  but  on  account  of  it.  We  have  no 
authentic  reports  of  what  was  carried  on  by 


268  Modern  Judaism. 

the  early  Christians  at  their  secret  meetings. 
Their  opponents  and  persecutors  have  charged 
them  with  immoral  practices,  which  the  Chris- 
tians, however,  have  promptly  denied.  I  could 
never  believe  in  what  Lucian  tells  of  them, 
though  by  that  time  some  impure  elements 
might  have  already  found  their  way  into  the 
originally  pure  society.  The  uniformity  of 
their  secret  passwords,  symbols,  and  tokens, 
the  obedience  with  which  the  orders  of  their 
superiors  were  carried  out,  had  the  desirable 
effect  that  in  any  part  of  the  world  a  friend  and 
brother  could  be  found  and  communicated  with 
who  would  do  his  utmost  to  help  a  friend  in 
distress.  This  was  another  and  not  slight  ad- 
vantage held  out  at  a  time  when  the  highways 
were  crowded  with  travellers,  and  travelling  for 
pleasure  or  business  had  become  almost  as 
common  as  in  our  day. 

There  was,  furthermore,  a  peculiar  mixture  of 
republicanism  and  despotism  in  the  organization 
of  the  early  church  which  guaranteed  its  suc- 
cess. The  members  of  each  congregation  were 
at  liberty  to  elect  their  officers,  who  in  their  torn 
elected  a  bishop  for  their  diocese.  This  insured 
good  officers,  men  who  were  worthy  of  the  con- 
fidence of  their  constituency.  But  the  congre- 
tion  had  no  power  to  remove  them  afterwards 
from  office,  and  was  bound  to  abide  submissively 
by  their  rulings.  The  dictatorial  power  of  the 


Propagation  of  Religion.  269 

princes  of  the  church  could  accomplish  more 
than  otherwise  would  have  been  gained  by  repub- 
licanism pure  and  simple.  The  officers  of  the 
church  did  not  only  administer  to  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  their  flock,  but  for  a  long  time  they 
were  the  sole  administrators  of  the  common 
property.  The  richer  a  diocese  was,  the  more 
important  and  influential  became  the  office  of  a 
bishop,  and  thus  these  princes  of  the  church 
left  no  stone  unturned  to  enlarge  their  con- 
gregations by  an  addition  of  neophytes. 

During  the  first  three  hundred  years  the 
same  hereditary  policy  was  adhered  to  until 
their  secret  organizations  had  spread  and  perme- 
ated all  classes  of  society  in  such  a  manner  that 
the  Emperor  Constantine  was  finally  compelled 
to  acknowledge  them  politically.  With  his 
conversion  to  Christianity  we  enter  upon  a 
new  chapter  in  its  history. 

The  church  now  changes  its  tactics.  It  feels 
strong  enough  to  give  weight  to  its  moral  per- 
suasion by  an  appeal  to  physical  force.  The 
hope  in  the  return  of  the  master  now  disap- 
pears ;  the  fear  that  the  world  will  come  to  an 
end  is  now  given  up  as  childish  ;  reward  and 
punishment  are  removed  into  a  world  to  come, 
beyond  the  clouds,  beyond  the  tomb.  In  place 
of  these  primitive  doctrines  the  firm  resolution 
is  established  that  paganism  must  go :  that  it  is 
an  act  of  piety  to  propagate  religion  even  at  the 


270  Modern  Judaism. 

point  of  the  sword.  The  former  philanthropic 
and  communistic  schemes  are  laid  aside  as  in- 
feasible  and  impracticable  ;  marriage  is  made  a 
sacrament,  and  the  aspirations  of  the  church 
run  as  high  as  to  dream  of  the  establishment  of 
one  large  empire  under  the  government  of  a 
prince  of  the  church.  Open  war  is  now  waged 
for  more  than  three  hundred  years  against 
paganism,  and  after  the  turmoil  of  the  great 
migration  of  nations  had  subsided  we  find 
paganism  at  the  feet  of  Christianity,  its*  philo- 
sophical school  closed,  its  temples  either  des- 
troyed or  converted  into  churches,  and  the  star 
of  the  bishop  of  Rome  in  the  ascendancy.  He 
is  recognized  as  the  head  of  Christendom,  the 
successor  of  the  divine  master,  the  representa- 
tive of  God  upon  earth.  Kings  and  emperors 
bow  submissively  before  his  throne  and  receive 
their  crowns  from  his  hands.  Christianity  is 
now  propagated  by  force  of  arms  and  the  Chris- 
tian priest  now  follows  in  the  track  of  the 
Christian  warrior,  or  vice  versa. 

During  all  this  time  Christianity  had  left 
Judaism  unmolested,  for  several  reasons.  It 
had  separated  itself  only  by  degrees  from  the 
maternal  stock,  and  not  before  it  had  ascended 
the  Roman  throne  with  Constantine  had  it 
become  polluted  with  pagan  tendencies.  From 
that  time,  however,  it  cuts  loose  entirely  from 
Judaism,  and  we  observe  now  how  one  dogma 


Propagation  of  Religion.  271 

after  the  other  is  formed  to  suit  the  time,  in 
flagrant  contradiction  to  Jewish  principles. 

Too  busy  with  its  work  of  conquest,  Chris- 
tianity paid  little  attention  to  Judaism,  nor  did 
it  fear  it.  With  the  exception  of  some  theolog- 
ical controversy  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  God, 
and  some  occasional  legislation  in  regard  to  the 
celebration  of  Jewish  holy-days,  no  efforts  were 
made  to  convert  the  Jews  by  force  or  persuasion 
to  Christianity.  The  Jews  in  their  turn  had 
become  denationalized,  and  so  intimidated  by 
their  recent  misfortunes  that  they  were  satisfied 
to  leave  well  enough  alone ;  they  carried  on 
their  trade,  studied  and  expounded  their  law 
and  propagated  their  religion,  as  before,  only  in 
a  negative  manner. 

But  when  paganism  had  finally  expired  and 
Christianity  had  become  the  mistress  of  the 
world,  when  its  dogmas  and  ceremonies  had 
lost  their  original  purity,  and  had  become 
tainted  with  pagan  customs  and  usages,  when 
it  was  called  upon  to  measure  swords  with  a 
new  enemy,  Mohammedanism,  and  to  wrestle 
with  him  for  the  championship  of  the  world,  it 
turned  its  eye  towards  the  Jew,  and  wondered 
why  it  should  wage  an  expensive  war  against 
the  infidel  Turks  as  long  as  in  its  own  midst 
there  was  an  element  to  be  converted  which  so 
long  had  escaped  its  notice.  From  the  time  of 
the  Crusades  the  pages  of  Jewish  history  show 


272  Modern  Judaism. 

the  marks  of  persecution,  which  was  the  out- 
come of  a  misplaced  zeal  on  the  part  of  Chris- 
tianity to  propagate  its  religion  amongst  the 
Jews. 

The  motives  for  this  zeal,  however,  had 
changed.  There  was  no  longer  the  desire 
prevalent  to  save  a  friend  from  impending 
perdition,  nor  was  the  absurdity  of  idolatry 
to  be  contested.  Political  and  social  regenera- 
tion, too,  was  no  longer  intended,  and  self- 
preservation  could  no  longer  have  been  a  stim- 
ulus for  it.  All  attempts  to  convert  Jews  to 
Christianity  were  caused  partly  by  jealousy, 
partly  by  greed.  The  Jews  claimed  to  be  the 
chosen  people  of  God,  and  to  have  preserved 
the  God-idea  in  its  purity,  and  Christianity 
could  not  deny  it ;  learned  Christians  knew 
rather  too  well  that  the  trinitarian  idea  was  no 
improvement  on  monotheism.  Christianity  had 
taught  the  pagan  to  abolish  his  idols ;  but  the 
Jew  now  pointed  with  his  finger  at  the  images 
with  which  it  decorated  its  churches,  and  at  the 
idolatrous  reverence  which  the  masses  paid  to  a 
host  of  saints. 

While  the  meek  Christian  had  turned  a 
soldier  and  had  won  laurels  on  the  battle-field, 
the  formerly  valiant  Jew  had  laid  the  sword 
aside  and  had  turned  to  commercial  pursuits. 
His  enterprise  and  his  temperate  habits  had 
made  him  rich,  while  the  warlike  knights  im- 


Propagation  of  Religion.  273 

poverished  themselves  by  their  indolence  and 
extravagance.  How  could  they  rob  the  Jew  of 
his  well-earned  property  ?  They  knew  too  well 
that  he  would  rather  part  with  his  money  than 
accept  their  semi-pagan  religion,  and  therefore 
they  threatened  him  with  a  forced  conversion, 
in  order  to  obtain  his  wealth.  If  they  had 
earnestly  undei!  >ken  the  work  of  forcible  con- 
version, not  one  Jew  would  have  survived  to 
tell  the  tale. 

The  modes  of  propagating  Christianity  among 
the  Jews  were  in  all  countries  about  the  same. 
They  were  placed  under  exceptional  laws  ;  they 
were  compelled  to  debate  with  church  authori- 
ties on  religious  topics,  ostensibly  to  find  the 
truth ;  they  were  prohibited  to  study  their  laws  ; 
their  books  were  frequently  delivered  to  the 
flames ;  the  most  absurd  charges  were  brought 
against  them,  for  example,  that  they  would  use 
human  blood  on  the  Passover  Festival ;  exorbi- 
tant taxes  were  laid  upon  them  ;  and  occasion- 
ally they  were  expatriated.  Spain,  which  most 
successfully  propagated  the  Christian  religion 
amongst  the  Jews,  is  still  suffering  from  the 
consequences  of  her  mistaken  policy. 

It  was  on  account  of  these  persecutions  that 
the  Jews  became  so  disheartened,  that  they 
never  thought  of  propagating  their  own  views 
among  their  neighbors,  that  they  feared  every 
religious  controversy,  that  they  intrenched  them- 


274  Modern  Judaism. 

selves  behind  distinguishing  marks  of  all  kinds, 
and  that  they  were  happy  when  forgotten  by  the 
outside  world. 

Time,  however,  has  changed  the  relations 
between  the  two  creeds.  Science  and  a  better 
knowledge  of  historical  facts  have  relaxed  the 
former  prejudice,  and  the  higher  standard  of 
morality  and  the  more  develop  1  sense  of  jus- 
tice have  made  such  wholesale  robbery  as  was 
carried  on  in  former  ages  well  nigh  impossible. 
With  it  the  zeal  to  convert  the  Jew  has  van- 
ished. Our  enlightened  age  has  given  up  the 
notion  that  one  religion  only  can  be  the  right 
one,  and  that  all  the  rest  must  be  culpably 
wrong.  The  belief,  too,  has  been  abandoned 
that  the  performance  of  some  ceremony  con- 
stitutes religion.  Beholding  in  every  religion 
an  attempt  merely  to  grasp  the  infinite,  we  do 
not  object  to-day  to  a  diversity  of  religious 
views,  and  grant  to  every  religious  system 
the  right  of  propagating  itself  by  lawful 
means. 

If  ever  we  should  assert  our  right,  and  at- 
tempt to  propagate  Judaism,  it  must  be  with 
the  full  understanding  that  the  forms  of  religion 
are  not  its  spirit  ;  that  religion  must  be  propa- 
gated neither  by  compulsion  nor  by  intrigue,  but 
by  example  ;  that  we  must  convince,  and  not 
persuade  ;  a  conversion  must  never  be  made 
for  the  sake  of  temporal  gain,  but  it  must  be 


Propagation  of  Religion.  275 

the  innermost  conviction  of  the  proselyte  that 
our  views  of  life  harmonize  with  his  own. 

Divest  both  Christianity  and  Judaism  of  their 
mythological  garments,  reduce  their  history  to 
facts  and  not  to  assertions  which  must  be  be- 
lieved blindly,  and  you  may  rest  assured  that 
our  arguments,  our  ethics  and  morals,  will  not 
be  inferior  to  those  of  our  neighbors,  but  must 
be  the  stronger  as  Christianity  itself  has  been 
built  upon  the  understructure  of  Judaism. 

Allow  me  to  close  with  a  quotation  from  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  :  "  What  we  are  usually  pleased 
to  call  religion  nowadays  is,  for  the  most  part, 
Hellenized  Judaism.  Not  unfrequently  the 
Hellenic  element  carries  with  it  a  mighty  rem- 
nant of  old-world  paganism  and  a  great  infusion 
of  the  worst  and  weakest  products  of  Greek 
scientific  speculation,  while  fragments  of  Per- 
sian and  Babylonian  mythology  burden  the 
Judaic  contribution  to  the  common  stock." 


XVII. 

CHURCHES  AND  THEIR  RELATION  TO 
MORALS. 

'O  both  Jews  and  Christians,  the  small 
strip  of  land  called  Palestine,  situated  in 
Asia  Minor,  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea,  has  been  of  more  than  com- 
mon interest  for  thousands  of  years.  In  church 
parlance  it  was  called  the  Holy  Land.  The 
imagination  of  pious  worshippers  was  heated  to 
such  an  extent  that  in  many  cases  it  became 
their  most  fervent  wish  to  visit  this  land  in 
preference  to  any  other,  to  walk,  at  least  once 
in  their  lives,  the  ground  which  their  admired 
ancestors  had  trodden^  to  see  the  places  upon 
which  the  reported  supernatural  events  had  oc- 
curred. 

They  imagined  that  the  whole  country  was 
veiled  in  a  mist  of  holiness,  that  the  flowers 
therein  were  more  fragrant,  the  water  more  de- 
licious, the  air  more  balmy,  the  animals  more 
comely,  sun  and  moon  more  brilliant  than  else- 
where. From  the  most  ancient  time  down  to 
ours,  pilgrimages  were  made  to  these  sacred 
276 


Churches,  their  Relation  to  Morals.       277 

spots  :  there  was  even  a  time  when  all  Europe 
was  infected  with  that  travelling  mania.  I  do 
not  refer  alone  to  the  time  of  the  Crusaders, 
when  a  war  was  waged  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years  between  Europe  and  Asia  for  the  posses- 
sion of  these  few  square  miles  of  land.  No,  even 
later  the  selfsame  delusion  prevailed  amongst 
Jews  and  Gentiles. 

Jehuda  Halevi,  renowned  as  one  of  the  great- 
est poets  of  the  Spanish  period,  a  man  of  great 
wealth,  who  had  filled  the  highest  offices  in  the 
court  of  the  King  of  Spain,  had  no  greater 
ambition,  no  higher  desire,  than  to  behold  with 
his  own  eyes  the  sacred  places  in  Palestine. 
Not  before  he  had  reached  a  good  old  age  was 
he  able  to  realize  his  wish.  Finally  he  laid 
down  the  honors  and  burdens  of  his  various 
offices,  settled  his  household  affairs,  and  em- 
barked for  the  Promised  Land.  While  sitting 
upon  the  ruins  of  Jerusalem  and  bewailing  the 
fate  of  the  city  he  met  with  death  at  the  hands 
of  a  common  highwayman. 

I  know  not  whether  these  pious  pilgrims  were 
ever  rewarded  for  their  troubles  by  the  sights 
they  saw,  but  I  think  it  must  require  a  great 
deal  of  superheated  imagination  to  find  Pales- 
tine more  interesting  than  any  other  spot  on 
the  globe.  I  cannot  believe  that  the  country  of 
Palestine  is  holier  than  Massachusetts  or  any 
other.  The  waters  of  the  Jordan  are  not  differ- 


278  Modern  Judaism. 

ent  from  those  of  the  Charles  River,  and  as 
for  scenic  effects  there  are  thousands  of  places 
in  this  country  and  all  over  the  world  which 
surpass  by  far  the  natural  beauty  of  the  Holy 
Land.  Neither  do  historic  associations  fill  the 
scale  in  favor  of  Palestine.  There  is  no  spot  on 
the  earth  where  good  and  bad  people  have  not 
lived,  where  humanity  has  not  suffered  and  re- 
joiced, where  stirring  events  have  not  happened, 
events  which  helped  to  civilize  and  advance 
the  human  race  at  their  time  and  in  their  way, 
as  did  those  which  are  reported  to  have  oc- 
curred in  Palestine.  We  meet  with  delusion  and 
superstition  in  geography  and  history  as  well 
as  in  any  other  branch  of  science. 

What  Palestine  was  and  is,  historically  or 
geographically,  to  the  deluded  pious,  such  is  the 
church  —  or  the  churches,  if  you  please  —  to 
the  superficial  observer  in  regard  to  morals. 

Churches  are  believed  to  be  the  sole  producers 
of  morality;  they  are  thought  to  be  the  only 
nurseries  of  morals ;  their  representatives  — 
priests,  ministers,  clergymen,  rabbies,  doctors, 
or  by  what  other  name  you  may  choose  to  call 
them  —  are  believed  to  hold  a  patent  right  on 
the  manufacture  of  morals.  But  as  Palestine  is 
not  more  or  less  than  any  other  country  in  the 
world,  so  does  the  church  not  wield  greater 
power  in  the  realms  of  morals  than  any  other 
human  institution,  as,  for  instance,  the  home, 


Churches^  their  Relation  to  Morals,       279 

the  school,  society,  or  the  government.  The 
church  is  one  of  the  factors  which  by  their  mul- 
tiplication produce  morality,  but  it  is  by  no 
means  the  root  of  the  product, 

Let  us  look  upon  a  few  facts  which  would 
astonish  us  if  we  were  not  accustomed  to  them 
by  their  daily  occurrence.  There  is  no  institu- 
tion split  in  so  many  factions  as  is  the  church ; 
and,  though  all  of  these  factions  claim  to  strive 
for  the  same  end,  there  is  no  deadlier  enmity  to 
be  found  in  the  factions  of  any  other  institution 
than  that  which  exists  between  the  different 
religious  denominations.  Liberty  of  conscience, 
as  granted  here  and  in  some  other  countries,  is 
only  a  truce  which  the  contesting  parties  have 
been  compelled  to  accept  on  account  of  their 
numerical  weakness.  Let  one  sect  rise  into 
strength  and  prominence,  and  liberty  of  con- 
science will  soon  become  a  dead  letter. 

Since  the  time  that  people  assembled  in  pub- 
lic worship,  or,  in  other  words,  since  temples  or 
churches  were  established,  and  priests,  rabbies, 
ministers,  or  speakers  assumed  the  moral  gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  what  a  vast  amount  of 
good  advice  has  been  administered  by  them  to 
their  hearers,  but  with  what  effect  ?  Have  they 
become  better  on  account  of  the  many  sermons 
addressed  to  them  ?  Read  the  sermons  or  ora- 
tions delivered  by  the  ministers  of  all  denomi- 
nations from  the  time  of  Isaiah  to  the  present 


280  Modern  Judaism. 

day ;  what  do  they  contain  ?  What  is  their 
tenor  ?  As  a  rule,  they  begin  with  praising  the 
fidelity  of  bygone  generations ;  they  exalt  the 
virtue  and  the  moral  standard  of  our  ancestors ; 
they  seek  for  ideals  amongst  them  alone,  and 
find  an  everlasting  supply.  Then  the  prophet, 
preacher,  or  speaker  will  handle  his  contempora- 
ries without  gloves.  To  him,  they  are  the  worst 
generation  that  ever  disgraced  the  earth.  Reli- 
gion with  him  is  always  on  the  decline ;  and  if 
it  were  not  for  the  hope  that  future  generations 
would  be  better  than  the  present,  that  our  chil- 
dren were  expected  to  return  to  the  noble  con- 
duct of  their  great-grandparents,  the  speaker 
would  despair  of  humanity,  and  see  the  only 
remedy  of  the  evil  in  a  second  deluge.  Return 
is  the  ever-repeated  word  of  the  church ;  you 
never  hear  the  word  advance. 

This  could  be  understood  if  the  representa- 
tives of  the  church  in  a  given  generation  had 
addressed  their  age  in  this  manner  because  of 
the  exceptional  depravity  of  that  generation ; 
but  what  shall  we  say  if  there  has  never  been  a 
deviation  from  this  style  of  harangue  ?  Suppos- 
ing we  should  be^willing  to  return,  should  we 
be  better  off?  Just  read  some  sermons  of  fifty 
years  ago.  Just  read  what  the  church  fifty 
years  ago  thought  of  the  contemporary  age ;  it 
was  painted  by  its  churchmen  as  black  as  ours 
is  by  the  preachers  of  to-day,  and  so  back 


Churches,  their  Relation  to  Morals.       281 

through  all  the  generations  who  have  lived 
before  us.  Indeed,  if  we  could  read  the  ex- 
hortations of  preachers  a  thousand  of  years 
hence,  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  we  should 
find  exactly  the  same  admonitions  and  exhorta- 
tions, with  the  slight  difference  that  our  age 
would  then  be  set  up  as  an  ideal,  and  our 
mode  of  living  held  out  for  emulation. 

And,  after  all,  who  were  the  great  promoters 
of  humanity  and  civilization  ?  Who  were  the 
men  that  shaped  the  morals  of  ages  ?  Were 
they  priests  ?  Were  they  the  representatives 
of  the  church  ?  Not  at  all.  Moses,  the  great 
lawgiver  of  our  nation,  the  builder  of  the  pyra- 
mid of  morals  around  which  our  civilization 
solidly  clusters,  was  neither  a  priest  nor  an  ora- 
tor. The  founders  of  Christianity  were  no 
representatives  of  the  established  church  of 
their  time.  Mohammed,  the  founder  of  Islam, 
was  a  business  man.  If  the  church  is  what  it 
claims  to  be,  the  matrix  of  morals,  how  is  it 
that  it  has  never  taken  the  initiative,  that  it  has 
never  revolutionized  the  moral  world  ? 

Carlyle  says,  "  Man  always  worships  some- 
thing ;  always  he  sees  the  infinite  shadowed 
forth  in  something  finite."  But  how  is  it  that, 
in  spite  of  this  craving  for  worship,  people  have 
never  loved  the  church ;  that  through  the 
whole  history  of  religion  we  find  that  people 
constantly  and  persistently  act  in  opposition  to 


282  Modern  Judaism. 

the  doctrines  taught  by  the  church.  Scepti- 
cism and  agnosticism  are  not  children  of  our 
age ;  they  are  as  old  as  the  world  is,  they  have 
always  lived.  They  have  been  denounced  by 
the  churches  of  all  ages,  by  Pagans,  Jews,  Chris- 
tians, and  Mohammedans ;  but  there  is  no 
church  which  has  not  become  possible  on  ac- 
count of  a  preceding  scepticism  and  a  dissatis- 
faction with  the  previous  church. 

It  is  another  fact  that  while  the  church 
never  ceased  criticising  the  moral  conduct  of 
the  people,  the  people  in  retaliation  were  al- 
ways distrustful  of  the  church ;  and  no  sooner 
did  one  of  the  representatives  of  the  church 
compromise  the  institution  by  improper  con- 
duct than  a  derisive  scowl  went  through  the 
land,  denouncing  the  culprit  and  the  whole  in- 
stitution with  him.  People  were  and  are  al- 
ways ready  for  an  innovation  in  church  affairs, 
and  those  reformers  who  attacked  the  church 
of  their  time  most  fiercely  were  listened  to 
with  the  greatest  delight  by  the  people. 

Now,  can  you  imagine  that  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, laboring  under  so  many  disadvan- 
tages, the  church  could  ever  have  monopolized 
the  manufacture  and  propagation  of  morals  ? 
Could  you  for  a  moment  imagine  that  under 
such  unfavorable  circumstances  the  church 
could  ever  have  been  in  the  van  of  civilization  ? 
The  fact  is  that  the  church  has  not  preceded 


Churches,  their  Relation  to  Morals.       283 

but  followed  the  march  of  civilization,  that  it 
has  always  accommodated  itself  to  the  demands 
of  the  time,  that  when  people  demanded  reform, 
reform  preachers  arose,  that  it  has  not  been 
the  mother  but  the  nurse  of  morality.  Let  us 
understand  it  well :  the  church  is  not  the  origi- 
nator, but  the  indicator  of  morality.  It  shows  at 
a  glance  outwardly  how  high  the  water  of  mo- 
rality stands  inside  of  the  boiler  of  humanity. 
The  water  in  the  indicator  always  seeks  the 
level  of  the  water  in  the  tank  with  which  it  is 
connected ;  it  would  therefore  be  a  vain  attempt 
to  raise  the  water  in  the  tank  by  a  pressure 
upon  the  water  in  the  gauge. 

The  church  would  be  more  efficient  in  its 
work  when  it  should  better  understand  its  mis- 
sion, which  is  to  be  the  nurse  of  morals,  and 
nothing  else.  Like  a  nurse  the  church  must 
take  the  child  under  her  supervision  as  soon  as 
it  is  born,  feed  it  with  good  and  healthy  food 
and  protect  it  against  evil  influences,  until  it 
has  become  strong  enough  to  take  care  of  itself. 
She  must  forever  be  the  faithful  servant  of  its 
parent,  humanity,  and  never  assume  to  be  its 
master.  She  must  endeavor  to  win  its  con- 
fidence, improve  and  advance  with  it,  but  never 
retard  its  progress.  She  must  ever  change 
her  dress  and  outward  appearance  at  the  com- 
mand of  her  master;  she  must  always  look, 
neat,  clean,  and  tasty,  in  order  to  induce  the 


284  Modern  Judaism. 

parent  to  take  the  child  from  her  lap  to  kiss 
and  fondle  it. 

But  let  us  now  leave  the  metaphor  to  itself, 
let  us  rather  build  up  an  ideal  church,  such  as 
should  fulfil  its  mission  and  should  be  a  centre 
of  moral  development,  beloved,  revered,  and  hon- 
ored by  all.  I  hope  I  need  not  explain  that  by 
the  term  church  I  do  not  understand  the  mere 
building,  or  a  single  denomination,  but  the 
whole  institution,  Jews  and  Gentiles,  Catholics, 
Protestants,  Mohammedans,  Buddhists,  flock 
and  shepherd,  pew,  pulpit,  and  all. 

Like  a  church-building  the  ideal  church  must 
be  erected  on  solid  ground.  'It  must  stand 
upon  the  rock  of  faith.  Without  the  belief  in 
a  supreme  being,  in  a  God  who  is  the  omnipo- 
tent creator  and  preserver  of  the  world,  any 
church,  no  matter  how  tastefully  decorated, 
must  fall  to  ruin.  The  belief  in  God  is  one 
of  the  first  and  principal  essentials  of  a  church. 
If  a  congregation  does  not  assemble  for  the 
sake  of  worshipping  God,  for  what  else  does  it 
congregate  ?  Ethical  instruction  and  social 
intercourse  are  worthy  objects,  but  you  can 
indulge  in  them  outside  of  the  church  as  well. 
You  must  first  of  all  acknowledge  that  there  is 
a  God,  that  your  life  and  prosperity  are  in  his 
hands,  and  that  you  are  under  obligation  to 
him.  You  must  show  your  acknowledgment 
and  gratitude  to  God  by  spiritual  intercourse 


Churches,  their  Relation  to  Morals.       285 

with  him,  as  manifested  by  prayers  and  by  such 
other  demonstrations  as  in  the  view  of  the  time 
would  be  pleasing  to  the  father  of  mankind.  A 
soul-stirring  and  soul-satisfying  mode  of  wor- 
ship is  the  first  demand  which  must  be  sup- 
plied by  the  ideal  church.  .Each  form  therein 
must  have  a  meaning.  Forms  which  have  no 
longer  any  meaning,  or  the  meaning  of  which 
is  hidden  in  the  mist  of  ages,  must  not  be  tol- 
erated. Every  worshipper,  learned  or  not 
learned,  talented  or  simple,  old  or  young, 
must  at  once  be  impressed  and  enlightened 
by  the  ceremonial  part  of  the  service. 

The  ideal  church  must  not  look  back  too  far 
into  the  past ;  nor  must  it  look  too  far  into  the 
future.  Its  principal  care  must  be  for  the  pres- 
ent. We  do  not  find  all  virtue  in  the  past :  nor 
will  the  future  be  immaculate;  we  must  take 
our  ideals  from  the  present  age.  It  is  a  mistake 
to  undervalue  our  own  moral  standing.  With 
a  little  less  jealousy,  with  a  little  less  prejudice, 
with  a  little  less  selfishness,  we  should  find  true 
manhood  and  womanhood  in  abundance  around 
us  from  which  to  take  our  ideals.  Allow  me 
one  illustration.  Why,  whenever  we  speak  of 
republican  virtue,  must  we  always  refer  to  the 
Roman  general  Cincinnatus,  who  laid  down  the 
highest  position  in  the  republic  at  the  command 
of  the  people,  and  returned  to  his  farm  to 
raise  turnips  and  carrots?  Could  we  not  just 


286  Modern  Judaism. 

as  well  teach  it,  and  even  with  better  effect, 
by  pointing  at  the  last  two  presidents  of  our 
republic,  —  Hayes  and  Arthur,  —  who,  after 
their  term  of  office,  returned  quietly  to  their 
desks  in  their  law-offices  ?  It  is  exactly  the 
same  in  any  other  branch  of  life.  We  find 
Abrahams,  Jobs,  Davids,  and  Maccabees,  in  our 
present  age  as  well.  They  never  die  out.  It 
is  a  suicidal  practice  to  exalt  both  past  and 
future  at  the  expense  of  the  present. 

Neither  is  it  within  the  province  of  the  church 
to  solve  geological,  zoological,  and  astronomical 
problems.  Leave  these  to  the  scientist,  who 
makes  a  specialty  of  them.  What  has  the 
church  to  do  with  the  questions  how  the  world 
was  created,  whether  it  took  six  days  or  six  mil- 
lions of  years  to  form  it,  whether  man  was  made 
of  earth,  or  was  the  descendant  of  a  lower  spe- 
cies of  animals.  What  business  has  the  church 
to  teach  whether  the  sun  moves  or  stands  still, 
whether  supernatural  miracles  occurred  or  not, 
whether  Balaam's  ass  spoke  or  brayed  ?  Sup- 
pose he  spoke ;  what  of  it  ?  Can  these  mira- 
cles give  additional  strength  to  the  belief  in 
God  ?  Is  not  the  growth  of  a  blade  of  grass  as 
much  a  miracle,  and  as  unsolved  a  riddle  to  us 
as  the  reported  passage  of  the  Israelites  through 
the  Red  Sea?  Let  the  dead  bury  the  dead. 
The  church  loses  the  confidence  of  its  best 
adherents  by  not  minding  its  own  business,  and 


Churches,  their  Relation  to  Morals.       287 

by  dabbling  in  all  kinds  of  sciences.  If  a  scien- 
tist makes  a  mistake  it  matters  little  ;  the  next 
expert  who  proves  the  error  will  take  his  place 
until  another  proves  him  to  be  wrong ;  but  the 
church  cannot  afford  to  be  corrected :  it  loses 
immediately  its  hold  upon  the  minds  of  its  adhe- 
rents. Our  present  indifferentism  springs  from 
no  other  source  than  the  fact  that  geological  and 
astronomical  statements  made  and  upheld  by  the 
church  have  been  found  to  be  erroneous.  The 
ideal  church  must  work  for  the  present.  Here 
we  are,  no  matter  how  it  came  that  we  are  here. 
Here  is  the  world  with  its  innumerable  mira- 
cles. Here  are  our  fellow-beings.  What  are 
we  to  them,  and  they  to  us  ?  How  must  we  act 
in  order  to  live  happily  all  together  during  the 
brief  period  granted  to  us  ?  What  are  our  rela- 
tions to  the  great  cause  of  the  creation  ?  These 
are  the  questions  which  the  ideal  church  is 
called  upon  to  treat ;  and  I  should  think  that 
there  is  enough  in  them  to  reflect  upon,  to 
search  for,  and  to  speak  about. 

Let  the  future,  too,  take  care  of  itself.  Need 
we  trouble  ourselves  as  to  what  mankind  will  be 
or  do  a  thousand  years  from  now  ?  If  we  are 
to  pave  the  way  for  its  future  prosperity,  let  us 
pave  our  section  of  the  road  ;  but  we  cannot  be 
expected  to  pave  the  whole  route. 

The  ideal  church,  furthermore,  must  teach, 
not  criticise  ;  it  must  speak  the  truth,  but  not 


288  Modern  Judaism. 

insult ;  it  must  demand  self-command,  but  not 
abnegation ;  it  must  encourage  contentment, 
but  not  asceticism. 

Allow  me  to  point  out  a  mistake  which  the 
churches  of  all  denominations  have  made  to  the 
present  day,  and  which  the  ideal  church  must 
avoid. 

Though  they  acknowledged  correctly  the 
differences  between  spirit  and  flesh,  they  never 
recognized  the  rights  of  the  flesh.  They  at- 
tempted to  make  man  a  spirit  even  before 
death.  They  never  ceased  in  their  vituper- 
ation and  condemnation  of  the  flesh.  They 
took  a  delight  in  starving  the  body.  Fast- 
ing was  upheld  as  a  sacred  duty ;  and  to 
break  a  fast  was  stigmatized  as  an  un- 
pardonable sin.  The  ideals,  therefore,  which 
they  put  up  were  totally  impracticable.  If  all 
men  were  to  live  and  to  act  like  the  saints  of 
all  churches,  human  society  would  soon  fall  to 
pieces ;  it  could  not  exist.  The  churches  de- 
mand too  much  from  their  devotees.  A  man 
cannot  think  constantly  of  God  and  of  nothing 
else  ;  nor  can  he  constantly  pray  ;  neither  can 
he  devote  all  his  time  to  church  work.  Spirit 
and  flesh  must  work  in  harmony  with  each 
other.  God  created  them  both  for  their  special 
duties ;  they  are  friends,  and  not,  as  the 
churches  claim,  antagonists. 

The  ideal  church   must   work.      It  matters 


Chttrches,  their  Relation  to  Morals.       289 

little  what  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  any 
denomination  are,  as  long  as  they  work  with  the 
right  purpose.  The  members  of  each  denomina- 
tion must  ally  themselves  to  one  another  for  the 
purpose  of  working  together  in  friendship  and 
harmony  for  the  preservation  and  development 
of  morals.  They  must  work  for  justice,  truth, 
love,  and  charity,  and  not  simply  talk  about 
them. 

It  is  a  pity  that  the  Jewish  church  has  been 
robbed  of  its  effectiveness,  and  that  its  work 
has  been  reduced  to  almost  nothing.  Its 
founders  had  given  it  all  the  scope  it  wanted ; 
formerly  the  Jewish  church  administered  the 
law,  instructed  the  young,  and  dispensed  all 
charities,  but  later  generations  have  taken  away 
one  province  after  the  other  from  it. 

With  the  loss  of  the  political  existence  of  our 
nation,  the  administration  of  the  law  was  taken 
from  it.  Then  the  school  had  to  be  given  up 
by  necessity.  Finally  charity  has  been  switched 
off  from  the  congregation,  and  handed  over  to 
the  orders  and  other  charitable  societies  estab- 
lished for  that  special  purpose.  But  it  is  a 
grave  mistake.  A  church  which  does  not  work 
loses  all  its  dignity  and  influence. 

The  ideal  church  must  reconquer  the  lost 
provinces  and  give  out  work  to  every  member, 
and  indeed  the  field  of  charity  alone  is  large 
enough  to  supply  all.  Charity  is  the  principal 


290  Modern  Judaism. 

work  of  the  church,  but,  understand  me  rightly, 
charity  is  not  the- giving  of  alms,  but  the  distri- 
bution of  them  ;  it  is  not  a  tax  levied  upon  our 
pocketbook  but  upon  our  time,  our  brains,  our 
intellect,  and  energy.  Charity  means  to  modify 
and  to  alleviate  social  evils,  but  not  merely  to 
fill  the  hands  of  all  who  hold  them  up  to  us, 
without  discrimination.  Charity  requires  work, 
earnest  work,  and  the  ideal  church  must  organ- 
ize and  direct  it. 

Shall  I  say  a  word  or  two  about  the  leaders 
of  the  ideal  church  ?  I  believe  in  its  republican 
form  of  government,  I  believe  that  it  must  be 
a  church  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  by 
the  people.  I  believe  that  its  leaders,  both 
secular  and  spiritual,  should  be  practical  men, 
and  not  merely  theorists  or  linguists.  They 
ought  to  understand  political  economy  rather 
than  the  Chaldee  language.  They  ought  to  be 
familiar  with  the  history  and  the  literature  of 
their  own  time  and  country  rather  than  with 
that  of  Hindostan  or  Persia. 

Such  a  church,  if  established  in  every  denom- 
ination, will  soon  become  universal  and  unite  all 
humanity  in  its  fold.  It  is  the  church  of  the 
future,  the  church  of  the  time  which  we  expect 
to  come  and  which  we  call  the  Messianic  time. 
Let  us  pave  our  section  of  the  road  leading 
to  it. 


$'  :7--': 


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